LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 




.fa. 

Shelf *IlB, 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 

METHO DIS'T ARMOR 

O R 

A POPULAR EXPOSITION 

F T H E 

DOCTRINES, PECULIAR USAGES, 

AND ECCLESIASTICAL MACHINERY 

OF THE 

METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH 

r 

HILARY T. HUDSON, D. D., 

OF THE 

NORTH CAROLINA CONFERENCE. 



SHELBY, N. C. : 

AURORA BOOK AND JOB .PRINT. 

1832. 



L% 



f% . 



THE LIBRARY] 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



Entered According to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, 

by HILAEY T. HUDSON, 

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 028758 



PREFACE. 

The design of this little book is to give a condensed 
view of the prominent Doctrines, peculiar usages, and polity 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. The Articles 
of Faith and the General Rules are given, also with Scrip- 
ture Quotations and explanitory notes. The book putting 
into a small compass what lies scattered in many volumes 
of Methodist authors, is especially intended to meet the 
wants of the popular masses adhering to Methodism. 

THE AUTHOR. 
Shelby, N. C, April, 1882. 



f 



TO THE 

Methodist of North Carolina 

THIS VOLUME 

Xs most i{espectfulty and Affectionately 

INSCRIBED BY 

H. T. H UDSON. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I.— Rise of Methodism in England— The First 

Methodist Society— Sketch of John Wesley, 1-3 

CHAPTER II.— Rise of Methodism in America— Organiza- 
tion of the Church — Validity of Methodist Ordination — 
False Grounds of Apostolic Succession, 8-16 

CHAPTER III.— Articles of Religion with Scripture Quota- 
tions and Notes, 16-46 

CHAPTER IV.— General Rules with Scripture Quotations, 46-53 

CHAPTER V. — Prominent Doctrines — Universal Redemp- 
tion — Repentance — Justification — Regeneration — Wit- 
ness of the Spirit — Holiness — Apostacy, 53-76 

CHAPTER VI.— Orders in the Methodist Ministry- 
Deacons — Elders — Bishops, 77-79 

CHAPTER VII.— Mode of Baptism— Baptism of Paul— Of 

the Jailer — Of Cornelius — Of three thousand, 79-S6 

CHAPTER VIII.— Objections Answered— Baptismal Burial 
— Baptism of Christ— Baptism of John — Bapto — 
Baptidzo, S6-U4 



ii. Contents. 

CHAPTER EX.— Infant Baptism— As taught in the Old 
Testament— Christ's Recognition of Infant Member- 
ship — Peter preaching it — Family Baptisms, 94-100 

CHAPTER X. — Church Government — General, Annual, 

District, Quarterly and Church Conferences, 101-100 

CHAPTER XI.— Church Officers— Bishops, Presiding 
Elders, Pastors, Local Preachers, Lay Officers, Kx- 
horters, Glass Leaders, Stewards, Trustees, Superin- 
tendents, . 106-113 

CHAPTER XII.— Peculiar Usages of Methodism— Class- 
Meetings, Love-Feast, Itinerancy, 113^-119 

CHAPTER XIII.— Ministerial Support— The Divine law on 
the subject, Benefits received, Cheap preaching, 
Ability to pay, the Amount to be given, prosperity of 
liberal payers, plans, Stewards, 119-151 

CHAPTER XIV.— Church Membership— Converted Adults, 

Penitent Seekers, Baptized Children, 152-173 

CHAPTER XV.— Sunday Schools— Origin, Usefulness, 

Statistics, 174-178 

CHAPTER XVI.— Revivals— What is a Revival, Benefits 
to Members, Backsliders, Sinners, Children, Agencies 
to be employed, importance of having them, 178-194 

CHAPTER XVII.— Missionary Spirit of Methodism—Stir- 
ring tacts on Missions, Statistics of Mission Fields, 195-200 

CHAPTER XVIII.— Methodism and Education— Educa- 
tional Statistics, 200-202 

CHAPTER XIX.— Organization of the M. E. Church, 
South— Sketches of the Southern Bishops— Statistics of 
M. E. Church, South, 203-215 

( 'HA PTER XX.— General Statistics— Success of Methodism, 216-220 

CHAPTER XXI.— Apostolic Features of Methodism— Ex- 
ternal Form of Church Government— Claims of 
Methodism, 220-232 

CHAPTER XXII— Training of Children and Attaching 

them to Methodism, 233-247 



THE METHODIST ARMOR. 



CHAPTER I. 
ORIGIN OF METHODISM IN ENGLAND. 

The History of Methodism began in the year of 1729. 
It was born in the University of Oxford, England. While 
jit college, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, and George 
Whitetield, and a few others banded themselves together 
for the purpose of intellectual and spiritual improvement. 
So systematic were these young men in their habits of re- 
ligious duty that the gayer students in derision called them 

Methodists. 
So the disciples of Christ were first called "Christians," at 
Antioch by a deriding world, yet the name was so appro- 
priate that they gloried in it. And since Methodism has 
wrought out such a glorious History, none of her followers 
are ashamed of her name. 

1739. The First Methodist Societx 
was organized in London by Mr. Wesley. It began with 
about ten persons, and soon swelled up to hundreds. A 
great revival soon began to spread over the British realm. 
It was a work of great depth and duration. 

'"It came sweeping along like the winds which God 
had let loose from his tists, swaying devout souls, breaking 
down stubborn sinners, overturning hopes built on false 
foundations, but quenching not the smoking flax, nor 



G The Methodist Armor. 

breaking the bruised reed. It was heaven's bountiful gift 
to the silent prayer of the world's sorrow by reason of its 
great sin. Ln the midst of this spiritual darkness, God 
raised up a Bishop, a preacher, a poet : three men the equals 
of whom have, probably, never been seen in the world at 
once since the apostolic days. The Bishop was John 
Wesley, the preacher was George Whitefield, the poet was 
Charles Wesley. To these three men, and those whom 
they gathered to their standard, did the Lord commit the 
precious work of awaking the British kingdom to a sense 
of God and duty, and by them He wrought a reformation 
which stands alone as a spiritual revival without admixture 
of Statecraft or patronage of Parliament or King." 

Methodism began with experimental religion in the 
heart, and by spontaneous energies from within projected 
itself out into organic forms of life, such as class-meetings, 
love-feasts, Conferences, the Itinerancy, and Church polity. 
This is the philosophy of the Methodist economy. It is the 
power of divine life clothing itself with such organic 
functions as are necessary to perpetuate and spread itself 
through the world. In ten }-ears the outlines of the coming 
Church were already prepared. Societies were formed, 
Quarterly meetings held, Annual Conferences assembled, 
and preachers exchanged, and Methodism began her 
glorious career. 

Rev. John Wesley— The Foundkr. 

The illustrious Founder of Methodism was born June 
14, 1703, m the parish of Epsworth, Lincolnshire. He was 
descended from a long line of able ministers. "When God 
sets out to make a great man He first makes a great wo- 
man." This is eminently true in the case of John Wesley. 
His mother, Susannah Wesley, was a woman of strong 



Origin of Methodism in England. 7 

intellect, tine culture, deep piety and rare domestic qualities. 
John Wesley came of good stock. His father was a 
preacher before him. He entered college at the age of 
seventeen, and came out a distinguished graduate of one of 
the most famous Universities of the world. His intellectual 
training was of the highest order. A happy and, thorough 
conversion marked his religious experience. lie says: "I 
felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ 
alone for salvation, an assurance was given me that He had 
taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law 
of sin and dea f h." Before he knew what religion was 
theologically, now he knows what it \§ experimentally. From 
this timo on he is a new man full of power and the Holy 
Ghost. His intellectual faculties kindled up into a lumi- 
nous condition and his spiritual vision was clear and corn- 
pre'iiei-sive. The enthusiasm growing out of his experience 
went with him and caught material everywhere for new 
flame and fervor. The torch of Mr. Wesley's experience 
?et the world on fire, which has glowed and spread from 
that d3\ till new. The celestial fire, which warmed his 
heart is the light of the world. 

John Wesley died in 1791, exclaiming: "The Best of 
all is — God is with us.'' 

As beautiful as the Summer sunset in a cloudless sky, 
was the death of Mr. vVesley. The sun of his long li f e, 
beautiful in the morning of youth, radiant at the noon of 
manhood, after shining almost a century to enlighten and 
make fruitful the earth, went down in full-orbed glory, 
gilding the world left behind with the reflected splendor of 
its departing rays. 

'T consider him as the most influential mind of the last 
century, the man who will have produced the greatest re- 
sults centuries hence," said Southev. "Xo man has risen 



8 The Method fst Armor. 

in the Methodist Society equal to their founder, John 
Wesley," said Dean Stanly. "A greater poet may arise 
than Homer or Milton, a greater theologian than Calvin, a 
greater philosopher than Bacon, a greater dramatist than 
any of ancient or modern fame, a greater Revivalist of the 
Churches than John Wesley — never!" said Dr. Dobbins of the 
Church of England. "As Mount Everest lifts its tall head 
not only above every other peak of the Himalayas, but 
above the tallest peak of every other mountain in the wide 
world, so John Wesley, as a revivalist and reformer, towers 
not only above the other great men of Methodism, but 
above the greatest in all other Churches of Christendom," 
Dr. J. O. A. Clark. Though not a century and a half have 
elapsed since he founded the Methodist Church, yet no less 
than fifteen millions of persons, including communicants and 
adherents to his systems, are his followers. 

o 

CHAPTER II. 
ORIGIN OF METHODISM IN AMERICA. 

The Methodism, which swept through England as a 
spreading fire over a field of dry stubble, soon crossed the 
Atlantic and began to glow and burn in America. 
1766. The First Methodist Society. 

It was organized by Philip Embury, a local preacher, 
in the city of New York. Barbara Heck, a christian wo- 
man, has the honor of being the prime mover in the work. 
Embury and Barbara Heck emigrants from Ireland, ori- 
ginally of German stock. Robert Strawbride, from Ireland 
also, organized a Methodist Society in Maryland about the 
same time. These two local preachers were greatly assisted 
in their work by a British officer, named Captain Webb. 
The first Methodist Church was built in John Street, Xew 



Origin of Methodism in America. 9 

York, 1763. The Society consisted of but five members. 
As green forests sleep in the tin} 7 cup of acorns, so grand 
possibilities slumbered in this mustard seed of vital religion. 

1769. Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmore, the 
first itiuerr nt preachers sent out by Mr. Wesley, arrived in 
America, the former was stationed at John Street Church, 
1ST. Y., and the latter as pastor in Philadelphia, 

1771. Francis Asbury and Richard Wright came. 
The latter soon returned to England, but Mr. Asbury re- 
mained, and became the most memorable and influential 
man in American Methodism. 

1773. The First Annual Conference 

was held in Philadelphia. The Roll of names: — Thos. 
Rankin, R. Boardman, J. Pilmore, Francis Asbury, R. 
Wright, Geo. Shadfp'nl, Thos. Webb, John King, A. Whit- 
worth, Jos. Yearby. Thos. Ivan kin presided. The busi- 
ness was simple and brief. It consisted mainly in the 
agreement of the preachers to abide by the doctrines and 
discipline of Mr. Wesley. There were then but ten travel- 
ing preachers, six circuits, and 1160 members. 

1774. Robert Williams began to form Societies in 
Virginia. 

1776. The first circuit was organized in North Caro- 
lina, and called the "Carolina" circuit. 

Robert Williams came from England, landed in 
America, 1769. To him belongs the honor of introducing 
Methodism into Virginia and North Carolina. ITe was a 
musing preacher and instrumental in the salvation of 
many souls. 

1777, 1778. The whole country was seething and 
boiling over with the wan-spirit of the Revolution, yet 
great revivals prevailed in the South eastern part of Virginia 



10 The Methodist Armor. 

and in the counties ot Halifax and Warren in North Caro- 
lina. Eighteen hundred souls were added to the societies 
in one year. 

1784. The Organization of the Church. 
The u Methodist Episcopal Church" was formally or- 
ganized at a Conference of Methodist ministers called by 
Thomas Coke, L. L. I)., an Assistant of Mr. Wesley in 
England, and sent over hy the latter for the purpose of 
consummating such organization. The first Bishops, Coke 
and Ashury, were elected by the Conference (called the 
Christmas Conference) which met in Philadelphia, Dee. 25, 
1784, and continued its session until Jan. 2, 1785. 

Historical StatExMent. 

The organization constituted it a valid Christian Church. 
The associations formed by Mr. Wesley and his preachers 
were or.ginally called societies. They were voluntary as- 
sociations of persons for mutual improvement in experi- 
mental and vital piety. They were still members of the 
Church of England : they attended Us regular services and 
received the sacraments at its aitars. Mr. Wesley himself 
continued during life a regular Preabyter in that Church. 
The same state of things arose in America and continued 
during the existence of the colonial government. Soon 
after the close of the Revolution most of the clergyman of 
the English Church, many of wham were Tories, returned 
to England. This left the Methodist people without sacra- 
ments. The preachers did not think themselves authorized 
to administer them and appealed to Mr. Wesley for relief. 
lie regarded the societies as sheep in a wilderness without a. 
shepherd, and felt himself providentially called upon to 
provide for them proper pastoral care. Accordingly he 
ordained Dr. Coke a Presbyter of the Church of England, 



Origin of Methodism in America. il 

giving liim authority to exercise the office of a Bishop, 
calling him a Superintendent, which is only another name 
for the same tiling. Mr. Wesley sent Coke to America 
directing him to ordain Francis Asbury to the same Epis- 
copal office. These two were to have a general Superin- 
tendency of ali the Methodist Societies in America: they 
were to travel at large through the length and breadth of 
the land, and were to ordain Elders whose services were 
required by the exegencies of the people. 

Mr. Wesley prepared a form of Discipline for the use 
of the Methodists, which contained the Articles of Religion, 
the General Rules, a Ritual for ordination, and other ser- 
vices of the Church. As already stated the preachers as- 
sembled in General Conference, received Dr. Coke in his 
office as Bishop, and elected Francis Asbury to the same 
office, in accordance to Mr. vVesley's" direction. The Con- 
ference adopted the Discipline as their ecclesiastical consti- 
tution, and thus became a regularly and a fully organized 
Christian Church. 

The Methodists of America were no longer mere 
Societies within the pale of the English Church, but were 
themselves a properly constituted Gospel Church of God. 
They are now "A congregation of faithful men in which 
the pure Word of God is preached and the Sacraments are 
duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all 
those things that of necessity are requisite to the same." 

It is a Methodist Episcopal Church, not a Congrega- 
tional nor a Presbyterian Church. It is a Church governed 
and superintended by Bishops, who are elected and ordained 
to the work of the Episcopacy. 

It is sometimes said that Mr. Wesley did not intend to 
authorize the establishment of a Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and the proof alleged is, that he called Dr. Coke and Asbury 



12 The Methodist Armor. 

Superintendents, and rebuked them for allowing themselves 

to be called Bishops. The facts are: Mr. We&lev in the 
beginning of his ministry was a high-churchman, but the 
reading of Stillingfleet's "Irenicum" cured him of that 
belief. lie changed entirely his views on this subject. 
lie said: "I still believe that the Episcopal form of Church 
government to agree with the practice and writings of the 
apostles; but that it is prescribed in Scripture I do not 
believe.''" He in tended and did give the Episcopal form of 
Church government to the Methodist Church in America. 
Mr. Wesley shunned the term Bishop, and rebuked 
Mr. Asbury for wearing it because of the worldly pride, 
pomp, and ostentation with which that word was connected 
in the English Church. But the thing intended by the 
term when properly applied, he approved by giving the 
same when lie ordained Coke and sent him to ordain 
Asbury, and organize the Methodist Church under the 
government of the Episcopacy. 

Validity of Methodist Ordination. 

1. The Presbyters or Elders of the New Testament 
exercised the power of ordination. Timothy was ordained 
by "the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery,'' or body of 
Elders. 1 Tim. 4. 14. To deny that Elders have the right 
to ordain is to run directly against the expressed declara- 
tion of the Bible. Of his power to ordain, Mr. Wesley had 
no doubt. lie says : "Lord King's account of the primi- 
tive Church convinced me, many years ago, that Bishops 
and Presbyters are the same order, and consequently have 
the same right to ordain. ... I have accordingly appointed 
Dr. Coke and Francis Asbury to be joint superintendents; 
as also Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Yasey to act as 
Eiders among them in North America, by baptizing and 



Origin of Methodism in America. 13 

administering the Lord's Supper." In 1780, lie said : "I 
verily believe I have as good a right to ordain as to admin- 
ister the Lord's Supper." Luther, Calvin, Melancthou, as 
well as Mr. Wesley, believed in the validity of Presbyterial 
ordination. 

2. There are two ordinations — a Divine and a human. 
The divine is the call of God to preach the Gospel. The 
Saviour called and sent the apostles out to preach. "Go 
ye into all the world and preach the Gospel." Their 
ordination was the unction of the Holy Ghost. Human 
ordination recognizes the essential one of the Holy Ghost. 
When you can get the two, well and good, but if not, give 
us ihe divine, let who will have the human. The Churches 
properly enough for the sake of order license and ordain 
men to the work of the ministry, but no ecclesiastical 
authority can make ministers. They only recognize the 
call of God. The chief and essential ordination then is of 
God. And wherever this exists it matters but little what 
the human ordination is. Mr. Wesley called of God and 
eminently qualified by intellectual ami spiritual endowment, 
had, by reason of these endowments, and as being a Founder 
of a great Church, as much right to ordain a ministry, as 
any Pope, Patriarch, Bishop, or arch-Bishop, that ever per- 
formed that function. The true validity of the Methodist 
ministry i3 derived from Mr. Wesley, who was not only a 
Presbyter in the English Church, bu*", under God became 
an illustrious Founder of a great evangelical Church of 
Christ. Richard Watson says : "The Reformed Churches 
held the call ot the people the only essential thing to the 
validity of the ministry; and teach, that ordination is only 
a ceremony, which renders the call the mo p e august and 
authentic. Accordingly the Protestant churches of Scot- 
land, France, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, 



14 The Methodtst Armor. 

Hungary, Denmark, &c, have no episcopal ordination. 
For Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Melancthon, and all the first 

Reformers and Founders of these churches, who ordained 
ministers among them, were themselves Presbyters, and no 
other." Thus it appears that all these churches had no 
other ministry than such as was ordained by the Presbytery. 
Dr. Watson goes on to say : "In opposition to episcopal 
ordination, they (Protestants) urge that Timothy \vas or- 
dained "by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery" ; 
that Paul and Barnabas were ordained by certain prophets 
and teachers in the church of Antioch, and not by bishops 
presiding in that city. Acts 13 : 1-3. Furthermore it is a 
well known fact, that presbyters in the church of Alexandria 
ordained even their own bishops for more than two hundred 
years in the earliest ages of Christianity. They further 
argue that bishops and presbyters are in Scripture the 
same" and therefore episcopal ordination means nothing 
more than presbyterial ordination. They are but two 
names for one and the same thing. 

3. The theory of High-churchism affirms that the right 
of ordination is derived from an episcopal ordination trans- 
mitted in an unbroken succession from the apostles, and 
that without this so called apostolic succession there can be 
no church or lawful ministry. Consequently the Episcopa- 
lians claim to be the only true church. 

" The alleged succession is mot historically true. I mean 
that there has been no such unbroken succession of ordina- 
tions in the past. Such a succession cannot he proved : and 
it is morally certfin that such an unbroken chain never ex- 
isted. The world recently saw that the champions of 
popery could not even prove that St. Peter was ever at 
Rome, to say nothing of his ordinations. The facts already 
mentioned, that in the primitive Church several pastors 



Origin of Methodism in America. 15 

took part in each ordination, and that the modern popish 
view of ordination, was unknown, would naturally render 
it impossible to trace each ordination to any one bishop or 
presbyter. The Church-curate, who comes with a printed 
list of his ecclesiastical pedigree up to the apostles, must 
have wonderful confidence in the ignorance of those whom 
he expects to accept his list with unquestioning faith. 
Many eminent ministers and laymen of the English Church, 
who have made this subject a special study, have confessed 
that the historical succession is utterly untenable. ChiK 
lingworth said, "I am fully persuaded that there hath been 
no such succession." Lord Macaulay says, "Even if it were 
possible, which assuredly it is not, to prove that the Church 
had the apostolical orders in the third century, it would he 
impossible to prove that those orders were not in the 
twelfth century so far lost that no ecclesiastic could he 
certain of the legitimate descent of his own spiritual char- 
acter We see no satisfactory proof that the Church of 

England possesses apostolical succession." 

Bishop Iloadly says: "It hath not pleased God in his 
providence to keep up any proof of the least probability, or 
moral possibility, of a regular uninterrupted succession ; 
but there is a great appearance, and, humanly speaking, a 
certainty, to the contrary, that tne succession hath often 
been interrupted." Dr. Comber, as quoted by Mr. Bleby, 
says, '-There is neither truth nor certainty in the pretended 
succession of the first popes." Bishop Stillingfleet says, 
'•Come we, therefore, to Rome, and here the succession is 
as muddy as the Tiber itself. .... The succession so much 
pleaded by the writers of the primitive Church was not a 
succession of persons in apostolic power, but a sueeessh n 
of persons in apostolic doctrine." Archbishop Wnafelv 
says, '-There is not a minister in all Christendom who is 



1G The Methodist Armor. 

able to trace up, with approach to certainty, his spiritual 
pedigree." John Wesley, whom Churchmen are so fond 
of quoting for the benefit of Methodists, says, "The unin- 
terrupted succession I know to be a fable, which no man 
ever did or can prove." Let it be remembered that all 
these testimonies are from Churchmen, whom it, would 
naturally gratify to find evidence of an unbroken succession, 
whatever might be their estimate of its value. Yet this is 
the dogma on the strength ot which High-churchmen dis- 
franchise non-episcopal Churches of their Christian birth- 
right." 



CHAPTER TIL . 

ARTICLES OF RELIGION. 

The Church being regularly organized and officered, 
the Articles of Religion were adopted as her standard of 
Faith. The Twenty-Five Articles of Religion were ex~ 
tracted by Mr. Wesley, from the Thirty-Nine Articles of 
the Church of England. We give these Articles with 
Scripture quotations, and such notes as tend to explain the 
meaning and importance of them. 

Articles of Religion. 

I. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity. 

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, 
without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and good- 
ness; the maker and preserver of all things, visible and 
invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there are three 
persons, of one substance, power, and eternity, the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 

PROOFS. — Hear, O Israel : The Lord our God is one Lord. Deut. 6 : 4. 
One < rod and Father of all. Eph. 4: G. But the Lord is the true God. He 
is the living God, Jer. 10: 10. From everlasting to everlasting thou art God. 



Articles of Religion. 17 

Ps. 90 : 2. God is a Spirit. John 4 : 24. The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. 
Rev. 19 : 6. To God only wise, be glory. Eom. 16 : 27. The Lord is good to 
all ; and his tender mercies are over all his works. Ps. 145 : 9. There are 
three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. 
1 John 5:7. 

Note. 

I. The creative power of God. — "In the beo-innlng G<k1 
created the heaven and the earth." The Bible assumes the 
existence of God. "The Architect is simply named in the 
description of the building.'' It is left to the reader to see 
the eternal cause in the stupendous effect before him. 
There can be no effect without an adequate cause. This is 
a self-evident truth. Common sense leads men to believe 
that the existence of a house implies a builder; the picture 
implies a painter, a watch implies a watchmaker. So the 
existence of the world, the earth, sun, moon, and stars, 
implies an eternal Creator. This universe could not have 
built itself, such a supposition is u bold contradiction. 
Because it implies the existence of a thing possessed of 
creative powers before it did exist. 

II. Of the Word, or Son of God, who was made very nun\ 
The Son, who is the vVord of the Father, the very and 

eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's 
nature in the womb of the blessed virgin . so that two 
whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and 
manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be 
divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very man, 
who truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to re- 
concile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not. only for 
original guilt, but also for the actual sins of men. 

Proofs. — There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, 
the man Christ Jesus. 1 Tim. 2 : 5. In the beginning was the Word, and the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1. The Word was 



18 The Metiiodtst Armor. 

made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the 
onlv-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1 : 14. Forasmuch 
then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise 
took part of the same. Heb. 2: 14. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, 
and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Luke 1 : 35. 

Notes. 

1. Jesus Christ is God, being the Word or Logos. — "In 
the beginning was the Word." "For in Him dweileth all 
the fullness of the Godhead bodily." "For by Ilini were 
all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, 
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, 
or principalities, or powers, all things were created by Him 
and for Him. He is before all things, and ly Him all 
things consists." .... "For if pleased the Father that in 
Him, should all fullnes3 dwell." Col. 1: 16-19. 

It Christ created the world then it follows necessarily 
that He is older than the world. The builder of a house 
must be older than the house. His pre existence is thus 
established. Christ is greater than the universe. The maker 
is necessarily grander than the thing made. He is greater 
in extent, greater in power. His omnipresence stretches 
out far beyond the outskirts of this almost immeasurable 
universe. His omnipotence is greater than all the forces of 
nature, lie calmed the winds, that sweep in the wild rush 
of the tornado. He controls the lightning, that shivers in 
splinters the sturdy oak. The earthquake lifting a conti- 
nent upon its gigantic shoulders lie wielded to liberate 
Paul ai.d Silas from imprisonment, lie is owner of all things. 
Creation gives the most valid title to all things made. 
"For Him all things were created." All temporal things 
are but as a scaffold used to build up the gieat temple of 
salvation among men. 

III. Of the Resurrection of Christ. 

Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took 



Articles of Religion. 19 

again liis body, with all things appertaining to the perfect 
tion of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, 
and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the 
last day. 

Proofs. — Go quickly and tell his disciples that He is risen from the 
dead. Matt. 25 : 5. But He whom God raised again saw no corruption. 
Acts 13: 37. To this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He 
might be heard both of the dead and living ; for we shall stand before the 
judgment-seat of Christ. Kom. 14 : 9, 10. But now is Christ risen from the 
dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. 1 Cor. 15: 20. 

Notes. 

1. The Resurrection of Christ was His glorification and the 
seal of His atoning ivork. — It demonstrated His Divinity. It 
established the truth of His own prediction. "Destroy this 
temple and in three days 1 will raise it a £..•*" l -I lay down 

My lite, that I may take it again I have power to lay 

it down, and I have power to take it again." The "Resur^ 
rection was the infallible proof of His true Messiahship. 
For either He arose by His own power, ami if He did, then 
He was Divine; or He was raised up by the power ot the 
Father, and if this be so, then God sets His seal to His 
work, tor God would not raise from the dead an impostor. 

2. His resurrection is a pledge of the future life of His 
people. — On it depended the gift of the Spirit of life, the 
fruit of the ascension. The Lord rose again as the first- 
fruits of them that slept. "If we be dead with Him, we 
shall also live with Him." "Because I live, ye shall live 
also." 

'3. TJie proofs of Christ's resurrection are abundant. — Five 
times He showed Himself alive on the day of His resurrec- 
tion : to Mary Magdalene, to another company of women, 
to Peter, to tvvo disciples on their way to Einmaus, to the 
eleven. To St. Thomas in the j rayer meeting. Then in 



20 The Metiiodtst Armor. 

Galilee, to seven and to five hundred. They knew Him by 
many infallible proofs, lie showed them the marks of His 
hands and feet, even eating arid drinking with His disciples, 
thus proving the verity of His body. The Holy Spirit con- 
tinued their faith, for while Peter preached the risen Christ 
"the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the Word." 

IV. Of the Holy Ghost. 

The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the 
Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father 
and the Son, vevy and eternal God. 

Proofs. — Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost. Matt. 28 : 19. When he, the Spirit is come, he will 
guide you into all truth. John 16: 13. The Spirit itself beareth witness 
with our spirit that we are the children of God. Rom. 8 : 16. The eternal 
Spirit. Heb. 9 : 14. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost. 2 Peter 1 : 12. 

Notes. 

1. "The Christian Creed receives and adores the mys- 
tery that One Essence exists in a Trinity of coequal personal 
subsistences: related as the Father, the eternal Son of the 
Father, and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeding from the 
Father and Son." 

2. The Personality and Divinity of the Holy Spirit are 
set forth in the Old Testament Scriptures. As "let us 
make man in our image." "And the Spirit of God moved 
upon the face of the waters." The Spirit of God is crea- 
tive : "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of 
the Almi^ht} 7 hath given me life." He is no less active in 
Providence: "My Spirit shall not always strive with mart." 
He is omnipresent : "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit ?" 

8. The Holy Ghost is a Divine Person, distinct from 
the Father and the Son. He proceeds from the Father ami 
Son, and therefore can be neither, vet He is associated with 



Articles op Religion. 21 

the Father and Son in the divine work of creating and pre- 
serving all things. The personal pronoun He is applied to 
one who is another Comforter. "When the Comforter is 
come whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the 
Spirit of truth, who proeeedeth from the Father, Re shall 
testily of Me." 

V. The Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation. 
The Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to 
salvation ; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may 
he proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it 
should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought re- 
quisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy 
Scripture we do understand those canonical books of the 
Old and New Testament of whose authority was never any 
doubt in the Church, The names of the canonical books 
are- 
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, 
Joshua, Judges, Ruth, The First Book of Samuel, The 
Second Book of Samuel, The First Book of Kings, The 
Second Book of Kings, The First Book of Chronicles, The 
Second Book ot Chronicles, The Book of Ezra, The Book 
of Nehemiah, the Book of Esther, the Book of Job, The 
Psalms, The Proverbs, Ecclesiastes or the Preacher, Cantica 
or Songs of Solomon, Four Prophets the greater, Twelve 
Prophets the less. 

All the books of the Now Testament, as they a p e com- 
monly received, we (\o receive and account canonical. 

Proofs. — The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the Soul ; the testi- 
mony of the Lord is sure ; making wise the simple. Ps. 19 : 7. Search the 
Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life ; and they are they which 
testify of me. John 5 : 39. From a child thou hast known the Holy Scrip- 
tures, which are able to make thee wise unto Salvation. 2 Tim. 3 : 15. All 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for 



22 The Methodist Armor. 

reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. 2 Tim. 3: 1G. And 
receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls. Jas. 1 : 21. 

Notes. 

1. This Article teaches that the Bihle is to he appealed 
toin the final settlement of all questions of faith and practice. 
It is the rale of faith and practice. "The Bible, the Bihle, 
is the religion of Protestants." But the Catholic Church 
teaches that "Scripture and Tradition, and these explained 
by the Catholic clergy is the rule of faith." The bulls of 
Popes filling eight volumes, the Decretals, Acts of Councils, 
the Acts Sanctum, making ninety volumes, an unlimited 
mass of unwritten traditions, which have been accumulat- 
ing, like drift wood on a river, from the commencement of 
the christian era up to the present time — all these cumbrous, 
human inventions added to the Bible, constitute the 
Catholic rule of faith. The Council of Trent decreed that 
these traditions, both written and unwritten, are of equal 
authority with the Bible, and he that denies this shall he 
accursed. But Methodism in common with all Protestants, 
teaches that "the Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary 
to salvation" 

2. The Romanists oppose the private reading of the 
Bible as a sin. But we hold that the truths of the Bible 
are addressed to all, and are comprehensible by all, and 
therefore, the command — Search the Scriptures — is equally 
binding upon all. 

"The Word of God is the hook of the common people; 
it is the working-man's book; it is the child's book , it is 
the slave's book; it is the book of every creature that is 
dovvn-trodden ; it is a book that carries with it the leaven 
of God's soul ; it is a book that tends to make men larger 
and better and sweeter, and that succors them all through 
life; and do you suppose it is going to be lost out of the 



Articles of Religion. 23 

world ? When the Bible is lost out of the world, it will be 
because there are no men in it who are in trouble and need 
succoring; no men who are oppressed and need release; 
no men who are in darkness and need light; no men who 
are hungry and need food ; no men who are sinning and 
need mercy; no men who are lost and need the salvation 
of God. 

Let us, therefore, take the Word of God as our friend, 
and hold it to our heart, and make it the man of our coun- 
sel, our guide, the lamp to our feet, the light to our path. 
Use it, as God meant it to be used, as the soul's food and 
the soul's joy, and it shall be your life's rest/' 

VI. Of the Old Testament. 

The Old Testament is not contrary to the New ; for 
both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is 
offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator 
between God and man, being both God and man. Where- 
fore they are not to be heard who feign that the old fathers 
did look only for transitory promises. Although, the law 
given from God by Moses, as touching ceremonies and rites, 
doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts 
thereof of necessity be received in any commonwealth ; 
yet, notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from 
the obedience of the commandments which are called moral. 

Proofs. — Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto 
them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. And He said unto 
them, These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, 
that all things must he fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and 
in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me. Luke 24 : 27-44-45. Think 
not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets ; I am not come to 
destroy, hut to fulfill. Matt. 5:17 

Note. 
The harmony of the Old and New Testament is clearly 
seen in the fact that Christ and the apostles made frequent 



24 


The 


Metiiodtst Armor. 






quotations from the foi 


•mei\ 


Some writer lias 


si lOW ! 


i that 


about ninety quotations 


from 


the Old Testamei 


t arc 


found 


in the teaching of Ch 


ist. 


Tj establish the 


resurrection 


against 


the Sadducees 


, Christ quotes from Ex 


. 3: 6. 


To 


establis 


i the primitive 


instit 


iition of marriage 


quotes 


from 


Gen. 1 : 


27. To answer the 


question as to the 


great 


com- 



mandment, quotes from Dent. 6: 5. To show that David's 
Son was David's Lord, from Ps. 110: 1. To preach a ser- 
mon, from Isa. 61 : 1. Besides these and many more, there 
are references in our Lord's discourses to Jonah as a type 
of the resurrection ; to the brazen serpent; to the living 
water and manna in the desert; to Abel, Noah, Abraham, 
Lot, Solomon, Moses, Elijah, and Daniel. When 
tempted by the Devil, Hie great weapon of defence was, 
'•It is written." It is clear that Christ studied the Old 
Scriptures with devoted care and made constant use of 
their truths in His teachings. u The two Testaments, Old 
and New, like two breasts of the same person, give the 
same milk." The river of Salvation took its rise in the 
mountains of Judea, and descended into the plain of the 
Gospel, and like the Nile, spreaded beauty and fertility 
along its deepening and widening course. 

VII. Of Original or Birth Sin. 

Original sin standcth not in the following of Adam, 
(as the Pelagians do vainly talk,) but it is the corruption of 
the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of 
the off-spring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from 
original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to 
evil, and that continually. 

Proofs. — By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and 
so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Bom. 5: 12. By one 
man's disobedience many were made sinners. Eom. 5 : 19. Behold, I was 
shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psa. 51 : 5. And 
were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Eph. 2 : 3. 



Articles of Religion. 25 

Notes. 

1. The doctrine of the Pelagians was that children are 
born pure and innocent, and that they become corrupt hy 
outside influences, by imitating or following evil examples, 
by vicious education and society. 

2. The orthodox view is that this native corruption is 
derived from a sinful ancestry, in whose loss of purity their 
whole posterity is involved. This view represents the 
depravity of human nature as coming from the laws of 
natural descent, the child inheriting from the parent a cor- 
rupt nature, prone to evil, in consequence of which he runs 
easily into open sin. "A_dam begat a Son in his own like- 
ness." Gen. 6: 5. "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and 
in sin did my mother conceive me.'' Ps. 51 : 5. "From 
within, out of the heart or men, proceed evil thoughts." 
Mark 7: 21. On these passages and otheis the doctrine of 
original sin is based. There is nothing unreasonable in 
this doctrine. For it is well known that men do transmit 
bodily ailments and mental peculiarities to their children. 
Dishonest men tend to have dishonest children. Thieves 
tend to breed thieves ; murderers, murderers; drunkards, 
drunkards; insane men propagate insanity. 

"He that bo wet h t) the flesh shall of the flesh reap cor- 
ruption." Man, when he comes into the world, has seeds 
in his very nature — tendencies to act, and this in a particu- 
lar way. Some of these are for good; some are decidedly 
toward evil. There is certainly an original sin — otherwise 
there would not be universal actual sin — among children as 
soon as they begin to act for themselves and among men of 
all ages and countries. My view of this original sin is that 
it is very much hke that tendency toward evil which is 
produced by a course of wickedness. Let ; 



2G The Metiiodtst Armor. 

intemperance for a length of time and this creates a craving 
for drink. It is said that when Hie father lias been a 
habitual drunkard the son is apt to have an inclination to- 
ward bodily stimulants. This tendency of evil to propagate 
itself is inherited from the first transgressors, and has be- 
come hereditary. — Dr. McCosh. 

3. The moral status of children. — "The benefits of Christ's 
death are coextensive with the sin of Adam, (Rom. 5: 18,) 
hence-all children dying in infancy partake of the free gift." 
"Infants are not in deed born justified; nor are they capa- 
ble of that voluntary acceptance of the benefits of the free 
gilt which- is necessary in the case of adults; but on the 
other hand, they cannot reject it, and it is by the rejection 
of it that adults perish. The process by which <rrace U 
communicated to infants is not revealed, the manner doubt- 
less differs from that employed toward adults." — Watson. 

"Children are born into the world sustaining through 
the atonement, such a relation to the moral kingdom of 
God, as that they are proper subjects of God's regenerating 
grace, and those dying in infancy come into actual posses^ 
sion of all these blessings. They mry now be prepared for 
and admitted into the kingdom by the grace of God. This 
is sufficiently evident from our Lord's words, "Sutler the 
little children to come unto Me and forbid them not, tor of 
such is the kingdom of heaven." — Dr. Raymond. 

4. How soon can ice look for the conversion of our children / 
— "There is absolutely no authority whatever in Scripture 
for the popular notion that a certain degree of mental and 
moral development is necessary before this gift of divine 
life can be imparted. We should pray for our children 
that, like John the Baptist, they may be filled with the 
Holy Ghost from their mother's womb. We should expect' 
that, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, thev will be sanctified h'om 



Articles of Religion. 27 

the cradl ( e. How old must a rosebud be before it receives 
that life that enables it to blossom ? It may be stunted and 
dwarfed and die; the blossom may never come. But the 
normal law of God is rosebud and blossom on every bush. 

Converted ! Christ says, "Except ye be converted and 
become as little children ye shall not enter the kingdom of 
heaven." We reverse his saying. Our reading to the 
children is, Except ye become as grown men and be con- 
verted. The vine need not trail on the ground till it is ten 
years old, and then be trained on the trellis. The only way 
to ensure a good peach is to cut back the stick that grows 
from the stone, and put on a new graft. In God's kingdom 
the best fruit grows from the stone. The son need not 
wander off from his father's home, spend his substance in 
riotous living, and eat the hnsks that the swine do feed on, 
in order to be acceptable to his father, and have the best 
robe, and the ring, and the fatted calf. The immeasurable 
love of God gives us this infinite grace, not because of our 
wanderings, but in spite of them. 

The church will never make its best progress until it 
gets rid of this unscriptural idea, that the child must grow 
up recreant and be converted in maturity, that it must grow 
up outside the kingdom of God and be brought in late in 
life. What progress should we make in the common vir- 
tues if we were to proceed in the same philosophy ?" 

VIII. Of Free Will. 

The condition of man after the fall of Adam is< such 
that he cat-not turn and prepare himself, by his own natural 
strength and works, to faith, and calling upon God; where- 
fore we have no power to do good worlo, pleasant and 
acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ 
preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working 
with us, when vvc have that good will. 



28 The Methodtst Armor. 

Proofs. — I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me 
and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit : for without me ye can do 
nothing. John 15: 5. When we were yet without strength, in due time 
Christ died for the ungodly. Kom. 5: 6. You hath He quickened, who were 
dead in trespasses and sins. Eph. 2: 1, 5. 

Notes. 

1. The term "preventing" has here the old English 
meaning of "going before and helping." 

2. Man is convieted and converted by the power of the 
Holy Ghost, but the will of man must co-operate in the work. 

"Work out your own salvation with fearand trembling, 
for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do 
of his good pleasure." 

"The Divine Spirit is atmospheric, and it becomes 
personal whenever any person appropriates it. The sun- 
light has in it all harvests ; but we do not reap a single 
thing until that sunlight is appropriated by some root, or 
some leaf, or some blossom, or something in the ground. 
The sunlight on the Sahara has neither wheat nor corn. These 
are only to be hud in the field where seeds are planted, 
where the nature of the seeds works with the sunlight, and 
where the soil is quickened and stimulated by the heat and 
moisture that go with them. The divine influence works 
in men to will and to do by their nature, by their very law 
of organization ; and when a man becomes converted, it is 
by both the divine influence and the exercise of his own 
energies. That is to say, they co-operate. It is a unitary, 
although a complex, work. 

Some say that you must wait for the Spirit. Wait for 
the Spirit! How long must a man lie in bed waiting for 
the sunrise? The sun is up, and has been up an hour, two 
hours, five hours. It is noon-day, it is afternoon, and the 
sluggard lies waiting for the sun to bring him out! How 



. Articles of Religion. 29 

foolish it is when you apply it to anything excej t a 
technically religious matter ! The Divine Spirit is like the 
mother's heart. It is universal and infinite. It is the 
mother-soul of the universe, with infinite power, and sweet- 
ness, and beauty and glory, shining down upon all men, 
good and bad, high and low, ignorant and educated, and 
stimulating them to be better, to be nobler, to be higher; 
and what time any man accepts the influence of the Divine 
Spirit, and co-operates with it, that moment the work is 
done by the stimulus of God acting with the practical 
energy and will of the human soul." 

IX. Of the Justification of Man. 

We are accounted righteous before God only for the 
merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by fa.ith, and 
not for our own woiks or deservings. Wherefore, that we 
are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, 
and very full of comfort. 

Proofs. — By grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not of your- 
selves : it is the gift of God : not of works, lest any man should boast. Eph. 
2 : 8, 9. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the 
deeds of the law. Kom. 3 : 24. Being justified by faith, we have peace with 
God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Kom, 5:1. 

Notes. 

1. Doctrine: — The originating cause of justification is 
the i'vee spontaneous love of God. "God so loved the world 
that He gave His only Begotten Son that whosoever be- 
lieveth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." 

2. The meritorious ground of pardon is the atonement of 
Jesus Christ. It is through Jesus Christ. We are "justified 
by His blood.'' "Reconciled o God by the death of His 
Son." "Christ once suffered for sins." 

3. Personal faith is the instrumental cause of justification. 



30 The Methodist Armor. 

It is through faith. "Being justified by faith." Saving faith 
excludes works as a ground of justification. It is not by the 
merit of faith itself; but only by faith, as that which embraces 
and appropriates the merit of Christ. Faith is the hand 
receiving the gift of salvation. 

Results: — First, restoration to divine favor; "we have 
peace with God." Second, adoption into the family of God ; 
"If children, then heirs, heirs of God." "Whom He justi- 
fies, them He also glorifies." 

X. Of Good Works. 

Although good works, which are the fruits of faith, 
and follow after justification, cannot £ut away our sins, and 
endure the severity of God's judgments; yet are they 
pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and spring out of 
a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith 
may be as evidently known as a tree is discerned by its 
fruit. 

Proofs. — By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his 
sight. Rom. 3 : 20. Not by works of righteousness which we have clone, but 
according to his mercy he saved. Titus 3 : 5. 

Notes. 

1. The Bible clearly teaches that faith in Christ is the 
ground of salvation, but that good works are the measure 
ot our reward. Saved by faith, but preserved by good works 
is the true doctrine. 

2. The above Article also levels its force against the 
Catholie doctrine of good works as having an atoning merit 
in them. Thus, it was taught that when men made pil- 
grimages, went through a course of fasting, gave donations, 
repeated the Credo, the Ave, the Pater Nostcr, — these wero 
set down to their credit as so much over against wrong 
doing. They falsely assumed religion to be u mere business 



Articles of Religion. 31 

conducted as the transactions of a man's store where books 
of debit and credit were kept. 

3. While the Article cautions us as to the two particu- 
lars mentioned, it at the same time in harmony with the 
teaching of the Scriptures, urges the necessity of maintain- 
ing £ood works as the evidence and fruits of regeneration. 
Good works may be defined to be: Right motives flowing out 
into right actions. Good works are the outward expression 
of good feelings. Grace in the heart is the fountain; the 
good works are the^streams flowing from it. Love and 
good works are fountain and stream. And in proportion 
to the fullness of the lake of grace in the heart, will be the 
greatness, beauty, and fertility of the rivers of good works 
flowing from it. A feeble fountain will produce a feeble 
stream. 

XL Of Works of Supererogation. 

Voluntary works, besides, over, and above God's com- 
mandments, which are called works of supererogation, 
cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety. For ty 
them men do declare that they do not only render unto 
God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do 
more for his sake than of boui.den duty is required: where- 
as Christ saith plainly, When ye have done all that is corn* 
manded you, say, We are unprofitable servants. 

Proofs. — Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous or 
is it gain to him that thou makest thy ways perfect ? Job 22 : 3. So likewise 
ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, 
we are unprofitable servants ; Ave have done that which was our duty to do. 
Luke 17 : 10. 

Note. 

The erro 1 ' of the Catholic Church against which this 
Article is directed, teaches that "there Js an immense 
treasure of merit composed of the pious deeds of the saints, 



32 The Metiiodtst Armor. 

winch they have performed beyond what was necessary for 
their own salvation, and which were applicable to the 
benefit of others." But the Bible teaches that the circle of 
duty takes in the entire ability of man, and Therefore leaves 
no room for the works of supererogation. Oat of the 
coctrine of supererogation came the wicked system of sell- 
ing indulgences to commit sin, which so shocked Luther 
as moved him to begin and carry on the great work of the 
German Reformation. 

XII. Of Sin after Justification. 

Not every sin willingly committed after justification is 
the sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. Where- 
fore, the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as 
fall into sin atter justification : after we have received thu 
Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given, and fall into 
sin, and, by the grace of God, rise again and amend our 
lives. And therefore they are to be condemned who say 
they can no more sin as long as they live here; or deny the 
place of forgiveness to such as truly repent. 

Proofs.— Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your back- 
slidings. Jer. 3 : 22. If airy man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, 
Jesus Christ, the righteous. 1 John 2: 1,2. If we confess our sins, he is 
faithful and just to forgive us our sins. 1 John 1 : 9. Kemeraber therefore 
from whence thou art fallen ; and repent, and do the first works. Rev. 2 : 5. 

Note. 

This Article denies the dogma anciently taught by 
some, that every sin committed after justification is the sin 
against the Holy Ghost. The sin against the Holy Gh >st 
is ascribing the miraculous works of Christ to the agency of 
the Devil. The Scribes said, "lie (Christ) hath Beelzebub, 
and by the prince of the devils casteth He out devils." 
And Christ commenting on this charge says: "But he th.it 
shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgive- 



Articles of Religion. 33 

ness Because they said, He hath an wvilean Spirit.' 

This unpardonable sin is that grade of wickedness and 
settled malignity, that hardening of' the heart, w'.iich is not 
the result of ignorance, hut of a deliberate, systematic, and 
persevering opposition to clearly demonstrated and un- 
mistakable truth. It is not a state arrived at all at once, 
but is approached by a long series of wilful resistances to 
the known truth, and is unpardonable not because God 
withholds mercy to any trully penitent, but because all such 
have reached such a state ot moral desperation, that they will 
vot ask or receice pardon on the conditions of the Gospel. 
The unpardonable state is in the man., not in the unwilling- 
ness of God to forgive. The sign of this condition is utter, 
moral insensibility. Wherever there is spiritual sensibility 
enough to make a man fear he has committed it, it is cer- 
tain proof that he lias not. 

XIII. Of the Church. 

The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faith- 
ful men, in which the pure word of God is preached., and 
tne sacraments duly administered, according to Christ's 
ordinance, in all things that of necessity are requisite to 
the same. 

Proofs. — Unto the Church of God .... to them that are sanctified in 
Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the 
name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. 1 Cor. 1:2. And He 
gave some apostles ; and some prophets ; and some evangelists ; and some 
pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting of the siants, for the work of thi 
ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Eph. 4 : 11, 12. 

Notes. 

1. The definition of a church given in the above 
Article is broad and comprehensive. In the analysis we 
have: (1) A. congregation of faithful men. (2) The recog- 
nition of the Bible or the pure Word ot Go 1 as the rule of 



34 The Methodist Armor. 

faith and practice.; (3) The recognition of tha living Minis* 
try to preach and expound this word. (4) The Sacraments 
(Baptism and the Lord's Supper) properly administered. 
These are the/our corner stones of the church, which Christ 
founded on the rock— His own Divine Character. The 
definition harmonizes perfectly with the elements found in 
the apostolic Church as described in the Acts of the 
Apostles; and allows all Methodists to recognize all other 
denominations as being Gospel Churches, that come in the 
scope of the above definition. 

2. Denominational exclusiveness grows out of a false 
definition of what a Gospel Church is. To illustrate: the 
Romanish authority defines a church thus : "The company 
oi christians knit together by the profession of the same 
faith and communion of the same sacraments, under the 
government of lawful pastors, and especially of the Roman 
Bishop as the only Vicar of Christ on earth." Thus it 
makes the supremacy of the Pope an essential element of a 
Gospel Church. Consequently, it would logically follow 
that the Catholic is the only true church. Hence Romish 
bigotry. The Baptists define: "A visible church of Christ 
is a congregation of baptized (immersed) believers," &c. This 
definition cuts off all churches, whose members are not 
immersed. Hence their exclusiveness. 

XIV. Of Purgatory. 

The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardon, 
worshiping and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and 
also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, 
and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but repugnant 
to the word of God. 

Proofs. — Who can forgive sins but God only? Mark 2: 7. Thou Shalt 
not make unto thee any graven image. Ex. 20 : 4. Thou shalt worship the 
Lord thv God and him onlv shalt thou serve. Matt. 4: 10. 



Articles of Religion. 35 

^"ote. 

This Article condemns a cluster of Romish errors. 
The first is that of purgatory. The doctrine of the Romish 
purgatory implies a second probation for certain men. But 
the Bible teaches that there is no second probation after 
death. u In the place where the tree falletb, there it shall 
be." Eecles. 11 : 3. "lie that is unjust, let him he unjust 
still, and he which is filthy let him be filthy still." Rev. 22: 
11. "Whatsoever a man sowet.h, that shall he reap." We 
are cleansed from sin, not \>y purgatorial fires, hut by the 
blood of Christ. There is not a single passage of Scripture 
properly expounded favoring this doctrine. The second error 
is 'priestly absolution. God alone exercises the right to pardon 
sin. "Who can forgive sins but God only?" Mark 2: 7. 

The third is unage- worship, which is positively forbidden. 
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," etc. 
"I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who 
showed me these things. Then saith he unto me, SSee thou 
do it not. for lam thy fellow-servant: Worship God." 
Rev. 22 : 8, 9. 

The fourth error is praying to departed saints to inter- 
cede in behalf of men on earth. This doctrine makes saints 
sub-mediators between God and men, whereas the Word 
teaches ''There is one God, and one Mediator between God 
and men, the man Christ Jesus." 1 Tim. 2: 5. 

XV. Of Speaking in the Congregation in such a Tongue as 
the People understand. 

It is a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God, and 
the custom of the primitive Church, to have public prayer 
in the Church, or to minister the sacraments, in a tongue 
not understood by the people. 

Proofs. — He that speaketh in an unknown tongue, speaketh not unto 



S'j The Methodist ArxWof. 

men but unto God ; for no man understand eth him. In the Church I had 

rather speak Jive words with my understanding than ten thousand words 

in an unknown tongue. 1 Cor. 14: 2, 19. 

Note. 

This Article justly condemns the Roman Catholic 
practice of reading the service in the Latin language to 
English congregations. It is "plainly repugnant t<> the 
Word of God." To conduct the public prayers of the 
church in an unknown tongue is not only contrary to com- 
mon sense, but to the custom of the primitive church. In 
202, A. D. Origin says: 4k The Grecians pray to God in tire 
Greek, the Romans in the Roman, and every one in his own 
tongue.'* "The modern practice of intoning prayers and 
other parts of religious worship is also unintelligible, and 
opposed to reasonable service." 

XVI. Of the Sacraments. 

Sacraments, ordained of Christ, are not only badges or 
tokens ot Christian men's profession ; but rather they are 
certain signs of grace, and God's good will toward us, by 
the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only 
quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our faith in him. 

There are two sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord 
in the Gospel ; that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of 
the Lord. 

Those tive commonly called sacraments, that is to say, 
confirmation, penance, orders, matrimony, and extreme 
unction, are not to be counted for sacraments of the Gospel, 
being such as have partly grown out of the corrupt follow- 
ing of the apostles: and partly are states of lile allowed in 
the Scriptures, but yet have not the like nature of Baptism 
and the Lord's Supper, because the}- have not any visible 
sign or ceremony ordained of God. 

The sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed 



Articles of Religion. 37 

upon, or to be carried about ; but that we should duly use 
them. And in such only as worthily receive the same, they 
have a wholesome effect or operation ; but they that receive 
them unworthily, purchase to themselves condemnation, as 
St. Paul saith. 1 Cor. xi, 29. 

Proofs. — Christ ordained but two positive Sacraments — Baptism and the 
Lord's Supper. See Matt. 23 : 19. Matt. 26 : 2G. 1 Cor. 11 : 23. 

Notes. 

" The five Sacraments'' 'of the Catholic Church are con- 
firmation, penance, orders, matrimony, and extreme unction. 
Confirm at Ion in the Roman Church is a service by wh'ch 
those baptized in infancy publicly take upon themselves the 
obligations of the baptismal covenant, and voluntarily con- 
firm and rocpgnizo their church membership. The service 
in itself is proper enough., but not such in solemn dignity 
as to entitle it to be placed in the same rank with baptism 
and the Lord's Supper. The same may be said of "orders" 
or the ordination ceremony of the ministry, and of matrix 
mony. Roman Penance \s a service by which a penitent 
having sinned and made auricular confession, the priest 
grants pardon for 3ins committed alter baptism. This so- 
called sacrament is founded upon the assumption that the 
priest has power to forgive sin, which Protestantism regards 
as blasphemous. Extreme unction is a service consisting in 
anointing with holy oil persons at the point of death by 
which sins are forgiven and grace imparted. 

XVII. Of Baptism. 

Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of 
difference, whereby Christians are distinguished from others 
that are not baptized ; but it is also a sign of regeneration, 
or the new birth. The baptism of young children is to be 
retained in the Church. 



38 'The METiioDrsT Armor. 

Phoofs. — Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the 
name of the Lord. Acts 22 : 16. Except a man be born of water and of the 
Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. John 3: 5. He that be- 
lieveth and is baptized shall be saved. Mark 1G : 15. 

Notes. 

A brief .argument in favor of infant baptism will be 
found in another place. 

This Article defines Baptism to be : 

1. A sign of profession. It is a profession of faith in 
Jesus Christ as the Son of God. When a person makes a 
profession of faith, baptism is a sign of that profession and 
a pledge of loyalty to God and the Church. It is a pro- 
fession of faith in all the fundamental doctrines of salvation 
as taught by Christ. "See, here is wrter; what doth hinder 
me to be baptized? Philip said, If thou believest with all 
thy heart thou mayest; and he answered and said, I believe 

that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he baptized 

him." Acts 8: 36. 

2. Baptism is "a mark of difference ivhercby Christians are 
distinguished from others that are not baptized." The Jew was 
distinguished from the Gentile by the significant mark or 
sign of circumcision. In the Christian Church, Baptism in 
the name of the Trinity, takes the place of circumcision. 
By circumcision the Jew entered into the Jewish Church, 
by baptism we enter into the Christian Church. 

3. "It is also a sign of regeneration." The cleansing 
water is a lit sign of the^cleansing power of the Holy Ghost. 

XVIII. Of the Lord's Supper. 

The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love 
that Christians ought to have among themselves one to an- 
other, but rather is a sacrament of our redemption of 
Christ's death; insomuch that, to such as rightly, worthily, 
and with faith receive thesame, the bread which we break 



Articles of Religion. 30 

is a partaking of the body of Christ; and likewise the cap 
of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ. 

Transubtantiation, or the change of the substance of 
bread and wine in the Supper of our Lord, cannot be proved 
by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scrip-. 
ture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath 
given occasion to many superstitions. 

The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the 
Supper, only alter a heavenly and spiritual manner. And 
the means whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten 
in the Supper, is faith. 

The sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's 
ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshiped. 
Proofs. — And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave 
unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you : this do in re- 
membrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is 
the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you. Luke 2: j : 19, 20. 

£n"otes. 

1. Name?-— It is called "the Lord's Supper/' because it 
was first instituted in the evening, and at the close of the 
Passover Supper. It is called a "Sacrament," which means 
an oath of renewed allegiance to Christ. It is called the 
"Eucharist," which means the giving of thanks. "He took 
bread and gave thanks." A "communion" to express 
christian fellowship, 

2. The import of the Supper is a commemoration. "This 
do in remembrance ot Me." It took the place of the Pass> 
over, which commemorated the deliverance of Israelites 
from Egyptian bondage. The suffering of Christ delivers 
the world from Satanic bondage. A father once kept a 
cancelled bond for his family to look upon, and see how he 
had paid a heavy debt, through much self-sacrifice, to make 
them happy. So Christ has cancelled the claim of justice 



40 The Methodist Armor. 

against ns, "nailing it to His Cross." In the Lord's Supper, 
his family look upon this bond. 

3. Trcmsubstantiation is a Romanish absurdity. Being 
in bodily person in heaven ana at the right hand of the 
throne of the Father, Christ cannot at the same time be 
visibly and bodily in the hands of the priests, nor on linn*, 
dreds of altars at once. The expression, "This is my body," 
is a Hebraism for "This represents my body." It is clearly 
a figure. . As 4 T am the vine," "I am the door," "I am Hie 
way," "The seven good kine are seven yeyrs." Besides, if 
the bread and wine be actually changed into the real flesh 
and blood of Christ, how could these material things nour- 
ish and feed the soul, which is a spiritual substance? 'Tt 
is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh [ roiiteth nothing," 
in feeding the soul. While the Lutherans renounce the 
doctrine of a frw?substantiation, they affirm a co//substantia- 
tion, which is akin to the real presence of the Catholics. 
But in the light of common sense both the trans and the con 
are alike contrary to truth. Trie true doctrine is, a Sacra- 
ment is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ; wherein, by 
sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the New Covenant 
are represented, sealed and applied to believers. The sacra- 
ment is to be taken after a heavenly and spiritual manner. 
Its benefit depends upon the fsrith of the communicant. 
The astronomer does not worship the telescope, but looks 
through it out and beyond to the stars in the heavens. 80 
the bread and wine are as a telescope, through which the 
eye of faith looks to Christ dying on the Cross for the sins 
of the world. '"This do in remembrance of Me." 

XIX. Of both kinds. 

The cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the lay peo- 
ple, ior both the parts of the Lord's Supper, by Christ's 



Articles of Religion. 41 

ordinance and commandment, ought to be administered to 

till Christians alike. 

Proofs. — Jesus took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them (the 
disciples) saying, Drink ye all of it. Matt. 26 : 27. For as oft as ye (believers 
in common) eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death 

till he come But let a man (the believer) examine himself, and so let 

him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. 1 Cor. 11 : 26. 

Notes. 

Both the bread and wine were originally administered 
by our Lord to the apostles, and both elements were ordered 
to be given to the lay people until the coming of Christ. 
The command is, Drink all of you. Surely Paul was not 
addressing the cler^v when he wrote his epistle to the 
Corinthian church, in which he said, "Let a man examine 
himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup." 

This Romish error grows out of the greater one of 
transubstautiation. The Papists teach that after the bread 
and wine are changed into the flesh and blood of Christ, 
He is whole and entire in either bread or wine, and so 
whatever part the communicant may receive, he receives 
the whole Christ. Therefore, that church has decreed to 
give "the lait} T only in one kind." And whoever does not 
believe with that church, it says, "Let him be accursed." 

XX. Of the one Oblation of Christ, finished upon the Cross. 

The offering of Christ, once made, is that perfect re- 
demption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of 
the whole world, both original and actual: and there is 
none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. Wherefore 
the sacrifice of masses, in the which it is commonly said 
that the priest doth offer Christ for the quick and the dead, 
to have remission of pain or guilt, is a blasphemous fable, 
and dangerous deceit. 



42 • The Metiiodtst Armor. 

Proofs. — So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. Ileb. 9 : 28. 

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more For in 

that He died, He died nnto sin once. Kom. G: 9. Neither is there salvation 
in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among mer, 
whereby we must be saved. Acts 4:12. There remaineth no more sacrifice for 
sins. Heb. 10 : 26. After He had offered one sacrifice for sins, He forever sat 
down on the right hand of God ; for by one offering he hath perfected forever 
them that are sanctified. Heb. 10: 11. 

Note. 

This Article condemns as a blasphemous fable the 
cinema of the Catholic church, which affirms that Christ is 
offered afresh for s ; n every time the mass is celebrated; 
and teaches the Protestant doctrine, that Christ made but 
one offering of himself tor sin, and that this offering is perfect, 
complete in every respect, and forever final. Therefore, 
"the Romanist Sacrifice of the Mass has no sanction, but is 
utterly condemned in the Epistle to the Hebrews." 

XXI. Of the Marriage, of Ministers. 

The ministers of Christ are not commanded by God's 
law either to vow the estate ot single life, or to abstain from 
marriage: therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other 
Christians, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall 
judge the same to serve best to godliness. 

Proofs. — The apostle Peter was a married man. "When Jesus was 
come into Peter's house, He saw his tcife's mother laid, and sick of a fever.'' 
Matt, 8: 14. Philip the Evangelist "had four daughters, virgins, which did 
prophesy." Acts 21 : 9. Paul says, "A Bishop must be blameless, the husband 
of 'bn6 wife." 1 Tim. 3: 2. "Let the Deacons be the husband of one wife." 1 
Tim. 3: 3. "Have we not power to lead about . . . . a wife as well as other 
apostles V" 1 Cor. 9 : 5. 

XoTE. 

* But the church of Rome has commanded her ministers 
not to marry, which command they strictly obey. And 
forbidding to marry is a sign of an apostate church. 1 Tim. 
4 : 1-3. 13 ut the Roman church not onlv forbids marriage 



Articles of Religion. 43 

to Iter clergy but lias exalted the marriage of the laity to 
the unseriptural dignity of a sacrament. What bold 
absurdities and gross errors. 

XXII. Of the Rites and. Ceremonies of Churches. 

It is not necessary that rites and ceremonies should in 
all places he the same, or exactly alike, for they have been 
always different, ami may be changed according to the 
diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that 
nothing he 01 dallied against God's word. Whosoever, 
thiongh his private judgment, willingly and purposely doth 
openly break the rites and ceremonies of the Church to 
which he belongs, which are not repugnant to the word of 
God, and aie ordained and approved by common authority, 
ought to be rebuked openly, that others may fear to do the 
like, as one that offendeth against the common order of the 
Church, and woundeth the consciences of weak brethren. 

Every particular Church may ordain, change, or abolish 
rites and ceremonies, so that all things may be done to 
edification. 

Proofs. — As free, and not using liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but 
as servants of God. 1 Peter 2 : 16. Let every man be fully persuaded in his 
own mind. Bom. 14: 26. Let all things be done unto edification. 1 Cor. 14: 
26. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink. Eom. 14: 17. 

Notes. 

1. The doetrines and institutions of the Christian religion 
are positive and iincJ.angeetble, while her rites and ceremonies 
are circumstantial.. Baptism may be administered by pour- 
ing. or immersion ; the elements of the Lord's Supper may 
be received sitting or kneeling; prayers ma} r be offered in 
public, kneeling or standing; we may stand or sit in sing- 
ing, &c. 

2. This Article opposes the Catholics, who maintain 
that the authority of the Church is Supreme, and whatever 



44 'The Metiiodtst Armor. 

rite she rimy ordain, though it becomes absolete and useless, 
is of supreme and endless obligation. It teaches that 
whenever a ceremony becomes a hinderance to the real 
progress of the Church, it is to be laid aside. When new 
ones are needed, they are to be used. The law of expediency 
is to reign as to these matters. 

3. This Article also teaches that when rites and cere^ 
monies are "ordained and approved" by the proper author- 
ities of the church, they are not to be tempered with by 
private individuals. No person is allowed "through his 
private judgment" to set them aside. This secures uni- 
formity of church ceremonies. 

XXIII. Of the Rulers of the United States of America. 

The President, the Congress, the General Assemblies, 
the Governors, and the Councils of State, as the delegates of 
the people, are the rulers of the United States of America, 
according to the division of power made to them by the 
Constitution of the United States, and by the Constitutions 
of their respective States. And the said States are a sov- 
ereign and independent nation, and ought not to be subject 
to any foreign jurisdiction. * 

Proofs. — Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there 
is no power but of God ; the powers that be are ordained of God. For rulers 
are not a terror to good works but to the evil. For he is the minister of God 
to thee for good. Bora. 13 : 1-4. 

Notes. 

* As far as it respects civil affairs, we believe it the 
duty of Christians, and especially all Christian ministers, 
to be subject to the supreme authority of the country where 
they may reside, and to use all laudable means to enjoin 
obedience to the powers that be ; and therefore it is expect- 
ed that ail our preachers and people, who may be under 



Articles of Religion. 45 

any foreign government, will behave themselves as peace- 
able and orderly subjects. — Note of the Discipline. 

The above Article was drawn up ut the Conference in 
1784, when the Church was organized, and incorporated iii 
the body of the Articles in 1786 when the next edition of 
the Discipline was printed. The explanatory note was 
appended in 1820. 

XXIV. Of Christian Mens Goods. 

The riches and goods of Christians are not common, as 
touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as 
sosiie do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought 
of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the 
poor, according to his ability. 

Proofs.— Thou shalt not steal. Ex. 20: 15. (Stealing implies ownership 
of property.) Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would 
borrow of thee, turn not thou away. Matt. 5 : 42. (Giving and lending neces- 
sarily imply the personal ownership of property.) But whoso hath this 
world's goods and seeth his brother hath need, and shutteth up his bowels of 
compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him. 1 John 3: 17. 

XOTES. 

1. This Article was drawn up to counteract the teach-, 
ing of the Anabaptists, who soon after the Lutheran Re* 
formation preached '"that all things ought to be common 
among the faithful." 

2. The instance of community of goods mentioned in 
Acts 2: 24, was not such as modern communists advocate. 
That of the early christians was voluntary, local and temporary. 
There was no forcible division of property. Peter said to 
Ananias, "While it remained, was it not thine own? and 
alter it was sold, was it not in thine own power?" — all of 
which shows that the common fund for benevolent purposes, 
was made up by voluntary contributions. Besides, this 
instance was not general but confined to the church at 



46 The Methodist Armor. 

Jerusalem. No mention is made of ar.y si mi liar arrange- 
ment in the further history of the church. 

XXV. Of a Christian Man's Oath. 

As we confess that vain and rash swearing is forbidden 
Christian men hy our Lord Jesus Christ and James his 
apostle; so we judge that the Christian religion doth not 
prohibit, but that a man may swear when the magistrate 
requireth, in a cause of faith and charity* so it be done 
according to the prophet's teaching, in justice, judgment, 
and truth. 

Proofs. — And thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth, in truth, in judgment, 
and in righteousness. Jer. 4 : 2. Men verily swear by the greater: and an 
oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Heb. 4 : 1G. And 
Jonathan caused David to swear again. 1 Sam. 20: 17. I call God for a 
record upon my soul. 2 Cor. 1 : 23. 

Note. 

Judicial oaths are believed to be lawful by all Christians, 
except the Anabaptists, who flourished about the time this 
Article was originally drawn up, and the Quakers and some 
minor sects. a Though it be said we shall not swear, yet I 
do not remember it is any where read that we should not 
receive or take an oath from another." — *S7. Augustine. 

o 

CHAPTER IV. 
THE GENERAL RULES WITH SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS. 

These Rules may be divided into three classes: 

1. Those forbidding the doing of evil. 

2. Those enjoining the doing of ^ood. 

8. Those enforcing the use ot the means of grace. 

These Rules have become a part of the constitutional 
law of our church, and are in perfect harmony with the 
Scriptures, being mainly apostolic rules of practical 



Gekekal Rulks with Scripture Quotations. 47 

Christianity. And heing such, no person is to he received 
into the ehureh, who is unwilling to ohseive them. It. is 
hardly necessary to state that these Holes contain no 
(loctiinal statements hut only the fundamental principles 
relating t;> [(radical godliness. 

These Rules are here arranged, classified, and nurnher- 
od with the Bible proofs on which they are founded. It will 
he seen that there is not one Rule, which is not hased on 
Bible truth. 

There is only one condition previous]}* required of 
those who desire admission into these societies, a "desire to 
ilee from the wrath to come, and to he saved from their 
sins." But wherever this is really fixed in the soul, it will 
he shown by its fruits. It is therefore expected of all who 
continue therein, that they should continue to evidence 
their desire of salvation : (Evils and Sins to be Avoided ) 

Rule 1. By doing no harm, avoiding evi! of every kind, 
especially that which is most generally practiced. 

Bible. — Abstain from all appearance of evil. 1 Thess. 5 : 22. Be ye 
wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. Matt. 10 : 1G. Abhor that which is 
evil ; cleave to that which is good. Eom. 12: 9. 

Rule 2. Taking oftiie name of God in vain. 
Bible. — Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain : 
for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. 
Exod. 20 : 7. 

Rule 3. The profaning the day of the Lord, either do- 
ing ordinary work therein or hy buying or selling. 

Bible. — Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt 
thou labor and do all thy work : but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the 
Lord ; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughters, 
thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that 

is within thy gate wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and 

hallowed it. Exod. 20 : 8-11. 

Rule 4. Drunkenness, or drinking spirituous liquors 
unless in cases of necessity. 



48 The Metiiodtst Armor. 

Bible. — Be not among winebibbers. For the drunkard and glutton 
shall come to poverty. Prov. 33 : 20. Wine is a mocker, strong drink is 
raging : whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. Look not thou upon the 
wine when it is red .... at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like 
an adder. Prov. 33 : 31. Woe to him that giveth his neighbor drink, that 
putteth thy bottle to him, and maketh him drunk. Hab. 2: 5. 

Note. — There are two kinds of wine mentioned in the 
Bible — one that makes men drunk which is condemned. 
everywhere — the other means sweet wine, not intoxicating, is 
spoken of as a blessing. Keeping this fact in view it will 
not he hard to reconcile the seeming contradiction in the 
Bible where wine is sometimes condemned, and then again 
commended. 

Rule 5. Fighting, quarreling, brawling, brother going 
to law with brother; returning evil for evil ; or railing for 
railing; the using many words in buying or selling. 

Bible. — From whence come wars and fightings among you ? Come they 
not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members ? James 4:1. The 
works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, hatred, varience, emulations, 
strife, seditions, heresies. Gal. 5 : 19. Dare any of you, having a matter 
against another, go to the law before the unjust and not before the saints. 1 
Cor. 6 : 1-6. Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing but contrari- 
wise blessing. 1 Peter 3 : 9. Let your conversation be without covetousness. 
Heb. 13 : 5. Let your yea be yea ; and your nay, nay, lest ye fall into con- 
demnation. James 5 : 12. 

Rule 6. The buying or selling goods that have not 
paid the duty. 

Bible. — Provide things honest in the sight of all men. Rom. 12: 17. 
Defraud not one the other. Render unto Ceasar the things which are 
Ceasar's. Matt. 22: 17. Render therefore to all their dues. Rom. 13: 7. 

Rule 7. The giving or taking things on usury, that is, 
unlawful interest. 

Bible. — Lord who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in 
thy holy hill ? He that putteth not his money to usury, nor taketh reward 
against the innocent. Psa. 15: 1-5. That no man go beyond and defraud 
his brother. 1 Thess. 4: 6. 

Note. — The Hebrew word for usury means exorbitant 



General Rules with Scripture Quotations. 49 

interest, [t means greediness, sharpness, rapacity, which 
takes advantage of the oppressed. The practice forbidden 
is receiving more for the loan of money than it is really 
worth, and more than the law allows. 

Rule 8. Uncharitable or unprofitable conversation ; 
particularly speaking evil of magistrates or of ministers. 

Bible. — Let all clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with 
all malice. Eph. 4: 31. Every idle word that men speak, they shall give 
account thereof in the clay of judgment. Matt. 12: 36. Let no corrupt com- 
munication proceed out of your mouth. Eph. 4: 29. Put them in mind to 
be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates .... to speak evil 
of no man. Tit. 3: 1-2. 

Rule 9. Doing to others as we would not they should 
do unto us. 

Bible. — Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do 
to you, do ye so to them : for this is the law and prophets. Matt. 7 : 12. 

Rule 10. Doing what we know is not for the glory of 
God ; as the putting on gold and costly apparel. 

Bible. — Whose adorning, let it not be that' outward adorning of plaiting 
the hair, and of wearing of gold or of putting on of apparel. 1 Peter 3 : 3. 
1 will .... that women adorn themselves in modest apparel .... not with 
broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array. 1 Tim. 2 : 8. 

Note. — The prohibition relates to needless extravagance 
in dress, and useless and showy ornaments. 

Rule 11. Taking such diversions as cannot be used in 
the name of the Lord. 

Bible. — Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith 
the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you and will 
be a Father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters. 2 Cor. 6 : 17. 
Be ye not conformed to this world. Pom. 12: 2. Know ye not that the 
friendship of the world is enmity with God. James 4 : 4. 

Note. — "Diversions" include those popular amuse- 
ments, such as dancing, theatres, circuses, &c, which divert 
or tarn the heart away from God to be f actuated by worldly things. 

Our Bishops explain the above rule as forbidding in- 
dulgence in the modern dance, and attending circuses and 
theatres. 



50 Ttie Methodist Armor. 

Rule 12. The singing those songs or reading those 
books which do not tend to the knowledge or love of God. 

Bible. — Be not deceived ; evil communications corrupt good manners. 
1 Cor. 15 : 33. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual 
songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord: Ephess. 5 : 19. 
I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ 
Jesus my Lord. Phil. 3 : 8. 

Rale 13. Softness and needless self-indulgence. 

Bible. — Then said Jesus unto his disciples. If any man will come after 
me, let him deny himself, and takefup his cross and follow me. Matt. 1G : 24. 

Rule 14. Laying up treasure upon earth. 

Bible. — Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and 
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal : But lay up for 
yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and 
where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is 
there will your heart be also. Matt. 6 : 19-21. 

Rule 15. Borrowing without a prohahi.Iify of paying; 
or taking up goods without a prohahiiity of paying for 
them, 

Bible. — The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again. Psa. 37: 21. 
Render unto all their dues. Rom. 13 : 7. Owe no man any tiling. Provide 
things honest in the sight of all men. Rom. 12 : 17. 

Good Offices and Works to be done. 

It is expected of all who continue in these Societies that 
they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation : 

Rule 16. By doing good, (1) by being in every kind 
merciful after their power, as they have opportunity; (2) 
by doing good of every possible sort, and, as far as possible, 
to all men. (3), 

Bible. — (1) Trust in the Lord, and do good. Psa. 37 : 3. To do good 
and to communicate forget not. Ileb. 3: 16. (2) Blessed are the merciful: 
for they shall obtain mercy. Matt. 5 : 7. (3) To him that knoweth to do 
good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. James 4 : 17. As we have opportu- 
nity, let us do good unto all men. Gal. 6: 10. 

Kule 17. To their bodies, of the ability which God 
giveth, by giving food to the hungry, by clothing the naked, 
by visiting them that are sick or in prison. 



General Rules with Scripture Quotations. 51 

Biele. — Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, 
ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
foundation of the world : For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat : I 
was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in : 
Naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison' 

and ye came unto me Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 

least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matt. 25: 31-40. 

Kule 18. To their souls, by instructing, reproving, or 
exhorting all we have any intercourse with ; trampling un- 
der foot that enthusiastic doctrine, that "we are not to do 
good unless our hearts be free to it." 

Bible. — Reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. 
2 Tim. 4: 2. Exhort one another daily. Heb. 3 : 13. Them that sin rebuke 
before all, that others also may fear. 1 Tim. 5 : 20. Ye are the salt of the 
earth and the light of the world. Matt. 5: 13-16. 

Rule 19. By doing good, especially to them that are of 
the household of faith (1) or groaning so to he, employing 
them preferably to others, buying one of another, helping 
each other in business; (2) and so much the more because 
tiie world will love its own, and them only (3). 

Bible. — (1) As we have opportunity, let us do good unto all men, espe- 
cially unto them who are of the household of faith. Gal. 6 : 10. (2) Be 
kindly affection ed one to another with brotherly love: in honor preferring 
one another. Distributing to the necessity of saints, given to hospitality. 
Rom. 12: 10-13. (3) If ye were of the world, the world would love his own. 
Joth. 15 : 19. 

Kule 20. By all possible diligence and frugality that the 
Gospel be not blamed. 

Bibee. — Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lore 7 . 
Rom. 12: 11. If a man provide not for his own, and especially for those of 
his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. 
1 Tim. 5 : 8. 

Rule 21. By running with patience the race which 
is set before them, (1) denying themselves and taking up 
their cross daily, (2) subsmittiiig to bear the reproach of 
Christ, to be as the tilth and offecouring of the world (3) 



52 The Methodist Armor. 

and looking that men should say all manner of evil of them 
falsely for the Lord's sake. (4) 

Bible. — (1) Seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of 
witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which dotli so easily 
beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Heb. 12 : 
1. (2) If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his 
cross, and follow me. Matt. 16 : 24. (3) We are made as the filth of the 
earth, and are offscouring of all things unto this day. 1 Cor. 4 : 13. (4) 
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say 
all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Matt. 5 : 11. 

Ordinances to be Observed. 

It is expected of all who desire to continue in these 
Societies, that they should continue to evidence their desire 
of salvation : 

Rule 22. By attending upon all the ordinances of God, 
such as The 'public Worship of God. 

Bible. — One thing have T desired of the Lord, that will I seek after ; 
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold 
the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. Psa. 27 : 4. Not for- 
saking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is^ 
Heb. 10 : 25. 

Rule 23. The ministry of the Word, either read or 
expounded. 

Bible. — Christ instituted the ministry and said: "Go ye therefore, and 
teach all nations : teaching them to observe all things whatsoever 1 have 
commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the 
world. Matt. 28 : 18-20. So then faith cometh by hearing, and bearing by 
the Word of God. Horn. 10: 14. But whoso looketh into the perfect law c f 
liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of 
the Word, this man shall be blessed in his deed. James 1 : 25. 

Rule 24. The Supper of the Lord. 

Bible. — And He took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it and gave 
unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you : this do in re- 
membrance of me. Likewise also the cup after Supper, This cup is the New 
Testament in my blood, which is shed for you. Luke 22 : 19-20. 
Rule 25. Family (1) and private prayer. (2) 

Bible. — (1) As Cor me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Josh. 21 : 



Prominent Doctrines of Methodism. 53 

15. Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the 
families that call not on thy name. Jer. 10 : 25. (2) When thou prayest, 
enter into thy closet, and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father 
who is in secret ; and thy Father, who seest in secret, shall reward thee 
openly. Matt. 6 : 6. 

Rule 2G. Searching the Scriptures. 
Bible. — I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. 
I will delight myself in thy statutes : I will not forget thy word. Psa. 119 : 15. 
Search the Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal life : and they 
are they which testify of me. John 5 : 39. 

Kule 27. Fasting, or abstinence. 
Bible. — When ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance : 
but thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face ; that thou 
appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father, who is in secret. 
Matt. 6 : 16-18. 

These are the General "Rules of our societies; all of 
which we are taught of "God to observe, even in his written 
word, which is the only rule, ana the sufficient rule, both 
of our faith and practice. And all these we know his 
Spirit writes on truly awakened hearts. If there be any 
among us who observe them not, who habitually break any 
of them, let it be known unto them who watch over that 
soul as they who must irive an account,. We will admonish 
him of the error of his ways. We will bear with him for a 
season. But if then lie repent not, he hath no more place 
amomr us. We have delivered our own souls. 



CHAPTER V. 

PROMINENT DOCTRINES OF METHODISM. 

I. Universal Redemption. 

Methodism teaches that the atonement ot Christ is uni- 
versal in its extent — that it is broad enough to cover all the 
sins of all the children of Adam from the beginning to the 
end of time. It teaches that the sacrifice of Christ derived 



54 The METHODrsT Armor. 

infinite value from the Divinity of His person, and is there* 
fore intrinsically sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole. 
human race, and was really -so intended. This is Arminianism. 

Calvinism teaches that, "Christ died exclusively for the 
elect, and purchased redemption for them alone, and in no 
sense did He die for the rest of the race." "That the 
atonement ot Christ is specific and limited* that it is neither 
universal nor indefinite, but restricted to the elect alone." 

According to Calvinism, ;he salvation or the non- 
salvation of each human being, depends absolutely and 
solely on the eternal, irresistible, decree of God, made 
"without any foresight of faith or good works in the creature, 
as conditions or causes moving Him thereto." According 
to this system, God has elected to eternal life, a certain, 
definite, unalterable number; and passed the rest of man- 
kind by unredeemed to perish in their sins. Hence, it 
teaches a partial atonement, irresistible grace, and final 
perseverance as flowing out from the decrees. Arminianism 
teaches that 4 *Christ died for all men," for "the whole 
world," and that the salvation or non-sal vation depends, 
not on an arbitrary decree, but upon the willingness or un^ 
willingness of each man to comply with the Gospel condi- 
tions of salvation. 

I. That Jesus Christ died for all men is clearly and expressly 
taught in the following Scriptures : 

Proofs. — That He, by the grace of God should taste death for every 
man. Heb. 2 : 9. He is the propitiation for sins : and not for ours only but 
also for the sins of the whole world. 2 Cor. 5 : 15. The grace of God that 
bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared. Titus 2 : 11. God so loved the 
world, that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3: 16. That was the true 
Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. John 1 : 9* 
God our Saviour .... will have all men to be saved 1 Tim. 2 : 3. For the 
love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, 
then were all dead. 



Prominent Doctrines of Methodism. 55 

Notes. 

1. If Christ died for nil men, then are all placed in a 
salvable condition. The sins of ever}' man are atoned for, 
a. pardon tor every man is purchased, and every man is 
welcome to the favor of God and everlasting lite. It fol- 
lows that a decree of reprobation, absolutely predestinating 
any human being to eternal damnation, is impossible. In 
harmony with the doctrine that Christ died for all men, the 
duty to believe in him as a Saviour is enjoined upon all. 

Proof. — He that believeth shall be saved, but he that beiieveth not 
shall be damned. Mark 16 : 16. He that believeth is not condemned, but he 
that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the 
name of the only begotten Son of God. John 3:8. 

2. In harmony with the scheme of universal redemp- 
tion, Gospel ministers are authorized to preach free salva> 
tion to all men. 

Proof. — Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gosj)el to every 
creature. Mark 16 : 15. And the Spirit and the bride say, come. And let 
him that heareth say, come ; And let him that is athirst come, And whoso- 
ever will, let him take the water of life freely. Eev. 22 : 17. Come unto me, 
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest ; and him that 
cometh unto me, I will in no w r ise cast out. Matt. 11 : 28. 

3. In accord with this doctrine, are many precious 
promises and tender expostulations. 

Proof. — Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord, though 
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow ; though they be red like 
crimson, they shall be as wool. Isa. 1 : 18. 

4. Then again, men are constantly charged with the 
blame of their own ruin. "For I have no pleasure in the 
death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, wherefore turn 
ye, and live." Ezek. 18: 32. We might quote every chap- 
ter in the prophets to show that the Israelites were blamed 
as the cause of their own ruin. But it is needless to en- 
large. The whole Bible testifies that men are truly the 
authors of their own destruction. God often complains 



5G The Methodtst Armor. » 

that he lias striven to save men, but they would not let him. 

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem how often I would have 

gathered thee, as a her, doth, her brood under her wings, 
but ye would not ." Matt. 23: 37. He ''will have all men to 
be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth/' 
1 Tim. 11 . 4. 

5. Furthermore, the argument from reason is as definite 
and conclusive. Does not every mairs own conscience tell 
him that he is the author of his own sins, and consequently 
of the punishment flowing from them ? Does not con- 
science accuse us, holding that we alone are to blame for 
them ? Thus the testimony of conscience sustains the 
Arminian doctrine. Yet Calvinism teaches that God "for 
the sake of his own glory" created man to be lost — created 
pain and stamped it with immortality — that "God did 
create a race, large portions of whom, not. being elected, 
would go on to eternal punishment, suffering forever and 
ever hopelessly — all "fo p his own glory." Can thero be 
any glory in creating and dooming millions of the human 
lace to perdition just for the sake of seeing them suffer? 
Is there "glory" in a government over this universe in 
which there is suffering without any other end than suffer- 
ing? Can there be any better definition of Satanic malig- 
nity given than that it is a voluntary creation of suffering 
merely for the sake of suffering? Finally, the salvation of 
every human being is possible, or it is not possible. If it 
is possible, then the possibility is based on the universality 
of the atonement, lor none can be save<l outside of the 
atonement. If the salvation of every man is not possible, 
then men are damned for not performing an impossibility, 
which is too monstrous for any sane man to believe. But 
as Methodists, we glory in the full, free, aid universal 
redemption of Christ. 



Prominent Doctrines of Methodism. 57 

Christ says: "Jam the light of the world" The candle 
is the light of a little room, the lamp is the light of the 
street, but the sun standing on the higharch.of the heavens 
says: "I am the light of the world." He tills the blue 
heavens above full of light, and clothes the rolling seas, the 
earth, its hills, dales, fields, and mountains with the beauti- 
ful robe of radiance. Who owns the sun ? Everybody. 
Tie is made for the world. The modest spire of grass can 
look up and say; '-Thou art my sun." The spreading oaks, 
the blooming flowers, the ripening grain in a thousand 
fields, can look up and say: "Yes, and he is no less our sun.'' 
The sun shines not for the few but for the teeming millions 
of earth. So Christ is the light of the world. k, IIe is the 
sun of righteousness." The Cross is the flaming orb of 
moral day, spreading impartially glorious light from Pole 
to Pole. Its povi er changes the winter of heathendom into 
the green and fruitful summer of christian civilization. 

The Psalmist says: "As the heaven is high above the 
earth, so great is his mer-jy toward them that fear him." 
The boundless extent of Leaven's blue field is an emblem 
of redeeming graee. The vast circular tent of the broad 
firmament encloses the whole race of man. None can go 
beyond and outside of its sapphire walls. Wherever man 
aiav stray on the remote frontier and far off corners of 
earth, the deep blue heavens bend over him. S > the 
boundless blue sky of Christ's love bends over the human 
race, beaming with the stars of promise and hope. 

As there is room in the broad ocean for all the ships of 
the world to float and never Crowd each other, so there is 
ample room in the kingdom of Christ for all men. As all 
the armies of the world can wash, bathe, and cleanse them- 
selves in the ocean, so in the red <ea of Christ's blood the 
world's vast population may be purified. 



58 The Metiiodtst Armor. 

"He tasted death for every man." "lie gave himself 
a ransom for all." "He is a propitiation for the sins of the 
whole world." That all are not saved is no objection. It 
is suggested by a popular expositor, that in material nature, 
much goodness seems wasted. Rain, and dew descend 
upon flinty rocks and sterile sands; floods of genial light 
come tiding down every morning from the sun on scenes 
where no human foot has trod ; flowers bloom in beauty, 
and emit their fragrance, trees rise in majesty, and throw- 
away their clustering fruit, on spots where a3 yet there has 
never been a man; wealth sufficient to enrich whole nations 
is buried beneath the mountains and the seas, while millions 
are in want; medicine for half the ills of life is shut up in 
minerals and plants, while generations die without knowing 
the remedy which Nature has provided ; it is no objection, 
therefore, to the universality of the atonement, that all are 
not benefited by it. Its benefits one day will be universally 
enjoyed. There are men coming after us who shall live in 
these solitary wastes, enjoy the beauty and the li^ht which 
now seem wasted, appropriate the fruits, the wealth, the 
medicine which forages have been of no avail. It will be 
even so with the death of Christ. There are men coming 
after us that shall participate in the blessings of that atone- 
ment, which generations have either ignorantiy rejected or 
wickedly despised. 

II. Repentance. 

Personal repentance towards God and faith towards 
our Lord Jesus Christ are always united in the Bible. 
Repentance implies a certain kind of pre existing faith and 
faith implies a pre-existing repentance. Both are produced 
by the preliminary grace of the Holy Spirit, but not per- 
fected without the co-operation of man. Repentance is a 



Prominent Doctrines of Methodism. 59 

means, and faith a condition of salvation. The broken and 
contrite heart, a godly sorrow of soul, a keen sense of sin, 
prepare the sonl to accept Christ as the only Saviour. Such 
a state of mind leads to a free and candid confession of sin. 
And this leads to reformation. This reformation implies 
two things, viz : a turning from sin, and a serious effort at 
obedience. The Bible commands the penitent : "Cease to do 
evil, and learn to do welly Repentance is pre-eminently a 
personal obligation. It is a duty laid up all men. 

Proofs. — God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. Acts 17 : 
30. Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Matt. 3 : 1, 2. Repent and 
be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins ; and ye 
shall receive the Holy Ghost. Acts 2: 38. Letthe wicked forsake his way, and 
the unrighteous man his thoughts ; and let him return unto the Lord, and 
He will have mercy upon him ; and to our God, for He will abundantly par- 
don. Isa. 55 : 7. Repent, and turn from all your transgressions ; so iniquity 
shall not be your ruin. Ezek. 18 : 21. Except ye repent, ye shall all like- 
wise perish. 

Xotes. 

1. True repentance must be thorough, forsaking all sin. 
If a ship have three leaks, t lie stopping of two of them is 
not sufficient. The third one left unstopped will sink it. 
All must be closed up. Or if a man have two dangerous 
wounds, the curing ot one is not enough. Both must be 
cured. A tree fallen upon the bosom of a river, sways up 
and down on the stream, but does not float off down stream, 
because it is anchored by a hidden root reaching into the 
bank. So one secret sin not given up will keep the soul 
from floating on the stream of grace into the kingdom of life. 

2. Gospel repentance makes self-sacrifice. A certain 
liqiur seller showed sincere repentance by piling up his 
liquor barrels and burning them. Sins dear as right eyes 
and hands must be given up. 



GO The Methodist Armor. 

3. True repentance asks pardon and trusts in Christ 
alone for salvation. 

4. Gospel repentance leads to an open and full con- 
fession of sin. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and 
just to forgive us." The benefit of confession is illustrated 
in the following story . A German prince visited the 
Arsenal at London where the galleys were kept. The com- 
mandant, as a compliment to his rank, offered to set at 
liberty any slave whom he selected. The prince went the 
round of the prison, and conversed with the prisoners. He 
inquired into the reason of their confinement, and met only 
with universal complaints of injustice, oppression, and false 
accusation. At last, he came to one man who admitted, his 
imprisonmennt to be just. '-My lord," said he, "I have no 
reason to complain. I have been a wicked, desparate 
wretch ; I have often deserved to be broken upon the 
wheel; and it is a mercy that I am here." The prince 
selected him, saying, ''This is the man who.n I wish re- 
leased." The application is easy. 

TIT. Justification Through Faith. 

"Justification is the Divine judicial act which applies 
to the sinner, believing in Christ, the benefit of the atone- 
ment, delivering him from the condemnation of his sin, 
introducing him into a ^tate ol favor, and treating him as a 
righteous person." "To be justified is to be pardoned, and 
received into God's favor; into such a state, that if we 
continue therein, we shall be finally saved." — Methodist 
Minutes. Justification, pardon, forgiveness of sins, are 
substantially the same in Methodist theology. 

This pardon extends to all sii.s in the past, little and 
great. "AH manner of sin" is forgiven; so "there is no 
condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus," The 
originating cause is the love of God ; the meritorious cause is 



Prominent Doctrines of Methodism. 61 

the atonement of Christ ; the instrumental cause is the person- 
al faith of the heliever. 

Proofs. — God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten 
Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but havj 
everlasting life. John 3 : 16. Christ is the end of the law for right- 
eousness (or justification) to every one that believeth. Rom. 10 : 4. 
Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord 
Jesus Christ. Bom. 5:1. By Him (Christ) all that believe are justi- 
fied from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law 
of Moses. Acts 13: 39. He that worketh not but believeth on Him 
that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness 
(or justification). Rom. 4: 5. Therefore we conclude, that a man i> 
justified without the deeds of the law. Rom. 3 : 2S. 

We must have that faith that relies on Christ as our sub- 
stitute. A farmer was seen kneeling at a Soldier's grave near 
Xashville. Some one said unto him : "Why do you pay 
so much attention to this grave?" "Was your son bnrie 1 
here?" tu Xo" said he "During the war, my family were 
sick. I knew not how to leave them. I was drafted. One 
of my neighbor's came over and said: 'I will go for you, 
I have no family.' He went off. He was wounded at Chkk- 
amauga. He was carried to the hospital and died. And, 
sir, I have come a great many miles, that I might write over 
his grave these words: He died for me." So Christ was our 
substitute, He died for us. He was wounded for our trans- 
gressions. 

"When the Son of God was made of a woman, and 
made under the law, then was heard the most awful voice 
that ever was heard in the universe yet : "Awake O sword ! 
against the man that is my fellew, and smite the shepherd," — 
smite him ! When there was a man in the world that wa3 
Jehovah's fellow, then there was one woo could magni y the 
law, in smiting whom justice could obtain it^ demands. The 
swori of ju3tie3 smote h'm, struck him, cut h'in. The sword 



C2 The Methodist Armor. 

of justice had a commission to smite the Man that was Jeho- 
vah's fellow : it smote him in Bethlehem ; it smote all alone: 
the highway of his life, even to Calvary. On Calvary the 
stroke of the sword fell heavy; the glances of that sword then 
darkened the sun ; the stroke of the sword shook the 
earth, shook hell ; it kept smiting and smiting the Man 
that was God's fellow, till at last he cried, "It is finish- 
ed!" Then the sword fell down at the foot of the cross, 
hushed, lulled, pacified: and it lay there till the third hal- 
lowed morning, when it was found changed into a sceptre of 
mercy ; and that sceptre of mercy has been a warning among 
mankind ever since." 

Without Works. — Faith without works, renounces every 
other dependence than the atonement. As an instrument, 
it embraces Christ, rests upon Him as a house upon a rock 
foundation, enters into His righteousness for safety as Xoah 
entered the Ark for protection from the flood. It acknowl- 
edges the utter impossibility of being saved by personal 
obedience to the law. To become righteous in that way is 
forever out of the question. It confesses past sins, present 
weakness, and the impossibility of cancelling past transgress- 
ions by future obedience. Justifying faith is then. the trust 
of the soul in Christ as the only hope of salvation. It is the 
forsaking of the sinking ship of self-righteousness and taking 
refuge in the Ark of Christ's atonement. The genuineness of 
this saving faith is proved by evangelical works of righteous- 
ness without which the state of justification cannot be re- 
tained. The works of faith declare, manifest, the life and 
reality of saving faith. The tree of justifying faith is known 
by the fruits of good works. The substance 'of fkith will 
project the shadow of good works. Hence there is a justi- 
fication by faith without the merit of works, and a justification 
by faith on flu evidence of works, but in both cases, justifica- 



Prominent Doctrines of Methodism. 63 

tion is based on the grace of the atonement. " As the body 
without the Spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." 
In conclusion note the following particulars : 

1. Importance of justification. — Justification is the very 
king and pillar of Christianity, and an error about justifica- 
tion is dangerous like a crack in the foundation. Justifica- 
tion by Christ is a spring of the water of life, and to have 
the poison of corrupt doctrine cast into this spring is damna- 
ble— T 7 . Watson. 

2. It is by faith. — Luther sought rest for his troubled 
breast in self-denial, and retirement as a monk, but did not 
find it. In 1500 he started as a delegate for Rome, hoping 
to find relief from his burden there. As he came in sight 
of the city, he fell on his knees, exclaiming, "Holy Rome I 
salute thee.'' He was shocked at the wickedness which he 
found there. The people said to him, "If there is a hell 
Rome is built over it." At last he turned to ascend Pilate's 
staircase upon his knees. He toiled from step to step, re- 
peating prayers at every one, till a voice • of thunder seemed 
to cry within him, "The just shall live by faith." Instantly 
he rose, saw the folly of his hope of relief through works of 
merit. !N"ew T life followed his new light. Seven years after, 
he nailed his "theses" to the doors of the Wlttenburg church, 
and inaugurated the Reformation. — Foster's Cyclopedic 

3. Only by the merit of Christ. — Some harbors have bars 
of sand which lie across the entrance, and prohibit the access 
of ships at low^vater. There is a bar, not of sand, but of 
adamantine rock, the bar of divine justice, which lies between 
the sinner and heaven. Christ's righteousness is the high 
water, that carries a believing penitent over this bar, and 
transmits him safely to the land of eternal rest. — Salter. 

4. Justification and regeneration are coincident as to 
time, though distant as to nature. The first is what God 



64 The Methodist Armor. 

docs for us in heaven — granting pardon for all past sins. 
The latter is what lie does in us — in regenerating the heart. 
Like two streams which unite their separate waters to form 
one river, justification and regeneration are combined in the 

work of salvation. 

TV. Regeneration. 

Regeneration is the new birth; that work of the IIolv 
Spirit by which we experience a change of heart. It is ex- 
pressed in the Scripture by being born again ; by being 
quickened; by our partaking of the divine nature. The effi- 
cient cause of regeneration is the divine Spirit. — JR. Watson. 
Proofs. — Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kinudom 
of God. John 3 : 3. That ye put on the new man, which after God is 
created in righteousness and true holiness. Eph. 4: 24. If any man 
be in Christ, he is a new creature. 2 Cor. 5:17. 

Xotes. 

1. Justification is the removal of guilt, while regenera- 
tion is the removal of the pollution of sin. Justification is 
an act taking place in the court of heaven, while regeneration 
is a work performed by the Holy Spirit in an<l upon the sold 
of the believer. Justification therefore, is objective, while re- 
generation is always subjective. Regeneration is the birth of 
a new-born babe. The infant born into the world is the man 
in miniature. All the parts of the body, and all the faculties 
of the mind, are there in embryo. So the regenerated per- 
son is a saint in embryo. The new principles are there, the 
new affections are there, the saint is there hut in infancy. 
The young twig two feet high is an oak, yet there is a vast 
distance between its diminutive size and the full grown oak, 
covering with its wide-spreading brandies an acre of ground. 
"The kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, which 
when it is sown in the 1 earth, is less than all the s^edsthatbe 



Prominent Doctrines of Methodism. 65 

in the earth. But when it is sown, it groweth-up, and be- 
comcth greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great 
branches." 

2. Regeneration is more than outward reformation. — "Wash 
me thoroughly from iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." 
Mark the thoroughness of this desire. Xot only must sin 
be blotted out, but the sinner himself must be washed and 
cleansed. There must be not merely a change of state, but 
a change of nature. Not only must the debt be forgiven, but 
all disposition to contract further debt must be eradicated. 
Outward reformation is cutting the bird's wings, but leaving 
it with the propensity to fly. It is pulling out the lion's 
teeth but not changing the lion's nature. A vicious horse is 
none the better tempered because the kicking straps prevent 
his dashing the carriage to pieces. Regenerating grace, like 
a lump of sugar in a cup of tea, sweetens the heart of man. 
It makes the tree good to get good fruit. It purines the 
fountain of the heart, and then the practical stream of life 
will be pure. 

3. The Scriptural images setting forth the nature of the 
new birth are many; The first is the New-Birth. "So is 
every one that is bom of the Spirit." "Christians are born 
of God, they are the children of God." "That which is born 
of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is 
Spirit." Every thing in generation produces its own peculiar 
kind. This is a universal law. The oak is born out of the 
acorn. The eao-le comes out of the e^ of the eao;le. Ser- 
pents beget serpents. Corn produces corn. "Wheat gener- 
ates wheat. So fallen human beings will generate children 
of impure fleshly nature. And as the child bears the image 
of the parent, so those born of God bear the image of God. 
They have the spirit of Christ. "To as many as received 
Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God" 



66 The Methodist Armoe. 

Secondly, Regeneration is compared to a vein creation. "If 
any man l)c in Christ lie is a new creature" or a new creation. 
He is created in Christ Jesus unto good works. This spiritual 
creation refers to the creation of the world at the beginning:. 
There were two stages of creation. First, the creation of 
matter ; then the fashioning the chaotic matter into a beautiful 
world of order. The latter illustrates spiritual creation. 
The soul in sin is the chaotic "earth without form and void, 
and darkness upon the face of it." And as the Creative 
Spirit moved over the huge bulk of matter to bring light out 
of darkness, beauty out of deformity, life out of death ; so 
must that same efficient and powerful Spirit shed light upon 
the darkened understanding, fashion the dilapidated soul 
into the beauty of the divine image, and imbue it with the 
moving energy of spiritual life. Thirdly, Regeneration is 
likened to a resurrection from a state of death. The re- 
generated are "those that are alive from the dead" "You 
hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." 
The regenerated man is the same man who was dead in sin. 
He has the same body, the same intellectual faculties, and 
personal peculiarities. The convert is the same man but 
leavened with a new spirit, Christ did not give the blind 
man new eyes, but a new Ijcjht to the old ones. He did not 
give Lazarus a new body, but imparted life to the old one. 
The body of Christ was not destroyed but remained the same 
body and was made glorious by the Transfiguration, so the 
spiritual man is made glorious by grace. 

4. The Evidences of Regeneration. — Regeneration is never 
without certain effects, which evidence its existence. We 
have seen that the Bible describes it as "life from the dead," 
and as "a new creation." All life manifests itself. All na- 
ture seems dead in winter. When Spring comes, we know 
it by the signs of vegetable life. The buds open in new 



Prominent Doctrines of Methodism. 67 

bloom, in new foliage, now virdnre, new fruit. The evidence 
of life is abundant in all departments of nature. So in the 
work of the Spirit. There is new light shining upon the 
mind. The sun of righteousness pours its beams upon the 
darkened soul. There is new love shed abroad in the heart. 
"We know that we have passed from death unto life because 
we love the brethren." Mr. AYesley said when converted : 
"I felt my heart strangely warmed." There is a new direction 
given to the will. The convert will ask : "Lord what wilt 
thou have me do ?" 

5. Its necessity. — Xone can go to heaven unless they are 
made holy. "Except a man be born of water and of the 
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Parity is a 
necessary qualification to enjoy heaven. If a sinner were 
lifted to heaven, he would be blind to its beauties, deaf to 
its songs, and dead to its joys. While malice remains in the 
devil's nature, were he admitted into heaven, it would be a 
place of torment. So a wicked man would meet hell in the 
midst of heaven, so long as he carries within him sin, for sin 
kindles the fires of hell in the soul. "The kingdom of God 
is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." 

V. Witness of the Spirit. 

"By the witness of the Spirit I mean an inward im- 
pression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God immediately 
and directly witnesses to my Spirit that I am a child of God ; 
that Jesus Christ hath loved me and given himself for me ; 
that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled 
to God."— John Wesley. 

Proofs. — The Spirit itself beareth witness with our Spirit that 
we are the children of God. Rom. 8: 16. He that believeth on the 
Son of God hath the witness in himself. 1 John 5 : 10. Because ye 
are Sons, God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, cry- 
in >•, Abba Father. Gal. 4: 6. The love of God is shed abroad in our 



68 The Methodist Armor. 

hearts by the Holy Ghost. Rem. 5 : 5. The fruit of the Spirit is love, 
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, 
temperance. Gal. 5: 22,23. 

Note. 

Can a man know that he is a Christian ? — Method! stic 
teaching answers, Yes. Mr. Wesley says : "The soul inti- 
mately and evidently perceives when it loves, delights, and 
rejoices in God, as when it loves and delights in anything. 
I love, and delight in God, therefore, I am. a child of God." 
The Bible furnishes certain marks of being a christian. 
First, there is the lore of God "shed abroad in our hearts by 
the Holy Ghost." The believer feels, knows, is conscious that 
he loves God ; "therefore," he says, "I am a child of God." 
Mr. Wesley says when he was converted, he "felt his heart 
strangely warmed." We are just as conscious of the warming 
influence of love as we are of a fire in a room, or of the genial 
beams of the sun breaking through the cloud on a cold day, 
and shining upon us. Love is likened to fire, and fire is 
something that can be sensibly felt. Secondly, fraternal love 
is a mark of a christian. The believer feels that he loves all 
who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity ; therefore, he 
concludes, "I am a child of God." "We know that we have 
passed from death unto life, because we lore the brethren." 
Brotherly love is adduced as a proof of having passed from 
death to life. Again, "He that loveth his brother abideth in 
the light." 

"Now, there are some things that we know. When a 
man is enraged he knows it ; and other people generally 
know it, too. When a man is full of spirit he usually knows 
it. When a man has the inspiration of ambition, and he is 
a fiery and energetic man, he knows that. A man knows 
whether he is in distress ; he knows whether he is eager; he 
knows whether he is forceful or mild. A man knows 



Prominent Doctrines of Methodism. 69 

whether it is his pleasure to do good, or whether he does it 
graciously. These things are within the sphere of positive 
knowledge. A man knows whether he joys or whether he 
sorrows. A man knows whether he loves or not ; for if he 
does not know that he loves, he does not love, and he may 
he sure of it. There are some things that are like fire ; and 
what would you say of one who should put his hand in the 
fire, and take.it out slowly, and look at it deliberately, and 
say, "On the whole, I think it burns" ? Men know what is 
evil. They know what is good. All the recognized thing's 
within the sphere of knowledge they know with positiveness 
— with all the positiveness that is required ; nor does it 
necessarily infer conceit. 

Take notice, then, in regard to this witness, that light is 
thrown upon the method of it. We do not have this witness 
borne in upon us in consequence of any actions of our own, 
standing upon which we reason to it ourselves. It is not the 
result of retrospect. It is not from any estimate that we 
form of our moral worth. The soul's spontaneous affinity 
for God being disclosed in us becomes itself the evidence. 
We find ourselves possessed of a certain enthusiasm. We 
are lifted up, fired with an unusual experience ; not a super- 
human experience, and yet an experience transcending all 
ordinary experience ; and the nature of it is that of love. It 
is an experience which, acting in love, draws us by elective 
affinities to the great Source and fountain of love, as well as 
of wisdom and power — God ; and this condition of the soul 
which produces filial love is the sign of God's influence upon 
us. It is the witness of the Spirit." 

VI. Holiness, or Sanctification. 

Sanctification is that work of God's grace by which we 
are renewed after the image of God, set apart for his service, 



70 The Methodist Armor. 

and enabled to die unto sin and live unto righteousness. It 
comprehends all the graces of knowledge,- faith, repentance, 
love, humility, zeal, and patience, and the exercise of them 
toward God and man. — B. Watson. 

Proop^s. — The very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I 
pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless. 
1 Thess. 5 : 23, 24. This is the will of God, even your sancUfication. 
1 Thess. 4:3. As He who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in 
all manner of conversation. 1 Peter 1 : 15. Who gave Himself for us 
that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself 
a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Tit. 2 : 14. We are sanctified 
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. Heb. 10 : 10. Here- 
in is our love made per/ee£. 1 John 4: 17. 

]STotes. 

1. The nature of Holiness. — It is the conformity of the 
heart and life to the law of God. The casting out of those 
inbred sins, the purification of the moral nature, and the 
restoration of the image of God, so that the soul is all glori- 
ous within, having the fruit of the Spirit — "love, joy, peace, 
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, tem- 
perance." It implies the consecration of the whole body, 
the whole heart, the whole spirit, the whole mind, property, 
influence, family — all to the service of God. 

Sanctiheation brings the intellect of the christian into 
captivity to Christ, so that he thinks for Him ; puts the love 
of God in his heart, so that he is unselfish and beneficent; 
the life of righteousness into his conscience, io that the law 
of right is his rule ; the life of obedience into his will, so 
that it is his meat and drink to do the will of the Father. 

2. When is it attainable ? — It is a work commencing in 
and carried on after conversion. It is a second blessing, in 
harmony with, yet separate from, and subsequent to, the work 
of conversion. There may be rare exceptions to this state- 
ment. The Catholic Church teaches that sanctification with 



Prominent Doctrines of Methodism. 71 

some is attained after death through, the fires of Purgatory. 
The Calvinists, that it can be attained only in the article of 
death. The Methodists maintain that it may be attained 
soon after conversion and enjoyed during life. All agree 
then that holiness — perfect love — sanctification — is absolutely 
necessary as a qualification for heaven. The difference is 
simply in the time of its attainment. The Arminian view is 
unquestionably correct and Scriptural. Our doctrine hereby 
elevates the plane of christian experience immeasurably 
higher than the other view. The Catholic doctrine that men 
are sanctified in Purgatory is simply absurd. To send a soul 
to hell to purify it, how ridiculous. Why is not the devil 
purified ? He has been in hell long enough to be very pure, 
if that be the place of purification. The Calvinistic theory 
has no Scriptural foundation. There is no virtue in the 
mere act of dying to sanctify the soul. 

3. That sanctification is attainable during life will be 
seen : (1) Because, God wills it. "For this is the will of 
God even your sanctification." God wills our sanctification 
just as truly and sincerely as He wills the salvation of sinners 
or any other desirable thing. There can be no higher law 
than the will of God. (2) Because, God commands it. "Be 
ye therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is 
perfect." "Be perfect" — not in knowledge or power as God, 
but in love and holiness. Be perfect — not in degree as God 
but in quality, in kind. (3) Because, tin's great blessing is 
promised. "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon, you, and 
ye shall be clean : from all your filthiness, and from all your 
idols, I will cleanse you." Ezek. 36 : 25. "If we confess our 
sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleans'^ 
vs from all unrighteousness ." 1 John 1 : 9. "The very God 
of peace sanctify you wJioUi/J' Does not this passage mean 
entire sanctification ? Do we have to wait till death for this ? 



72 The Methodist Armor. 

Then why docs the apostle pray that your "body be preserved 
blameless." (4) Because, the possession of holiness is eminently 
desirable. Holiness makes us like God. It enables us to 
enjoy much of heaven while on earth. It makes us more 
useful. It gives us meetness for heaven. The Methodist 
Church was raised up to spread holiness over the land. For 
this the precious blood of Christ streamed from the Cross- 
For this the Holy Spirit is sent into the world. For this the 
lamp of the Bible shines. Fortius the Gospel is preached. 
For this the world stands, the sun shines, the earth yields 
her increase, and judgment is delayed. For this God em- 
ploys the various agencies of the Church. "For He gave 
some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and 
some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the Saints." 

4. How is this blessed state to be attained f — (1) It is mani- 
fest that there must be a deep and abiding conviction of its 
need. No one will seek it till he feels it to be a duty and a 
great blessing. Reflect upon the reasonableness and glory 
of such state. Can anything less than the whole heart 
satisfy God? Supreme love to God is the glory of man. 
(2) There must be a definite and fixed purpose to seek it 
perseveringly and by all possible means. (3) It must be 
sought by entire consecration of yourself and all you have to 
God. Consecrating the hands to work for God, the feet to 
walk in the path of obedience, the tongue to speak truthfully 
and lovingly, the ears to hear what is good and pure, the 
eyes to see what is best in men, the heart to be a vessel full 
of christian love, the mind to reflect the glory of God as the 
moon the light of the sun, the property possessed to advance 
the cause of God. (4). It must be sought in the exercise of 
implicit faith — faith steadily believing in the ample ability^ 
willingness and readiness of God to bestow sanctifying grace. 
Nothing is hard with the omnipotent God. He, that through 



Pkominent Doctrines of Methodism. 73 

the sun, fills the earth with the glory of summer and the 
wealth of autumn, can fill your heart with the summer of 
divine grace. The ocean floats magnificent ships as easily 
as the fisherman's cork — the earth carries massive mountains 
as easily *as mole hills. It is as easy for God to give sanctify- 
ing as justifying grace. Throw yourself into the ocean of 
divine love, and be filled with all the fullness of God. 

VII. The Possibility of Fixal Apostacy. 

The Statement of the Argument. — It is possible for a per- 
son who has been trully regenerated to fall away from such 
a gracious state and be finally lost. This doctrine is clearly 
taught in the Old Testament Scriptures. 

Proofs. — But when the righteous tumeth away from his right - 
ousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the 
abominations that the vrieked man doeth, shall he live? All the 
righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned : in his 
trespass that he hath trespassed and in his sin that he hath sinned, 
in them shall he die. . . . When a righteous man tumeth away from 
his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them ; for 
the iniquity that he hath done, shall he die. Ezek. 33 : 12-20. 

Let the reader observe : 1. The persons referred to in 
this passage, are truly righteous men. Mr. Edwards con- 
cedes that a righteous man in Scripture phrase denotes a 
'■godly man." 2. The drift of the whole passage shows that 
these righteous persons may totally turn away and perish in 
their sins. 3. Man's life on earth is a period of trial. lie 
has all the endowments necessary to make him a free and 
responsible agent. In this character, there is no time on 
earth when he is not subject to change of moral character. 
As a sinner, he may repent, reform, and become a good man 
all along the path of his probation. There is no point along 
this probationary road up to the hour of death where he may 
not repent and believe; or being gootl may relapse into sin 



74 The Methodist Armor. 

and perish. If this be not true, then it must follow that 
man ceases to be a free agent. 

Second Proposition. — The possibility of total and final 
aposta ■>/ is expressly declared in the New Testament. 

Proofs. — For it is impossible for those who were once enlighten- 
ed, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of 
the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the 
powers of the world to come ; If they shall fall away, to renew them 
again unto repentance ; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of 
( <od afresh, and put him to an open shame. Heb. 6" : 4-8. 

Let the reader observe : These persons were christians 
of deep experience. 1. They were "enlightened." 2. " Tasted 
of the heavenly gtft" This may mean the experience of a 
gracious pardon. 3. "Made partakers of the Holy Ghost." 
This includes the work of regeneration, the witness of the 
Holy Spirit, and his indwelling influence. 4. " Tasted of the 
good Word of God." This means the christian's relish and 
comfort in reading the Scriptures. 5. "Tasted of the powers 
of the World to come." By thjs we understand the delightful 
anticipation of heaven. Here are all the murks and fruits of 
experienced christians. But these persons may fall away and 
finally perish. The whole drift of the passage teaches this. 
The Greek scholars agree that the term "if" is not in the 
original passage. Mr. Wesley proves that it is not there, 
and says it should read : "It is impossible to renew again 
unto repentance those who have been once enlightened and 
have turned away and renounced the Saviour — the only 
refuge for sinners." The fall contemplated is total and final. 
And the possibility of such a fall is borne on the very face 
of the passage. 

The same doctrine is taught by our Saviour : 

Proof. — T am the true vine and my Father is the husbandman. 
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh it away. I am 
the vine; ye are the branches. If a man abide not in me, he is cast 
forth as a branch, and is withered ; men gather them raid east them 
into the fire, and they are burned. John 1~>: l-(i. 



Prominent Doctrines of Methodism. 75 

Observe : 1. The persons here spoken of were branches 
in the vine, that is in Christ. 2. Some of these branches were 
cut q^T because they did not bear fruit. 3. And being severed 
from the vine — the only source of life — they hopelessly died, 
withered, dried up. For further proof-texts, see Luke 11 : 
12. Heb. 10 : 26. 

Third Proposition. — The possibility of final apostacy ap- 
pears from the repeated warnings against such danger, and the 
earnest exhortations to christian faithfulness. 

Proof. — Because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou 
standest by faith. Be not high minded, but fear ; For if God spared 
not the natural branches, take heed, lest he also spare not thee. 
Rom. 11 : 29. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an 
evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort 
one another daily, while it is called to-day ; lest any of you be 
hardened through the deceitf illness of sin. For we are made pa:- 
takers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast 
unto the end. Heb. 3 : 12-14. Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise 
being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come 
short of it. Heb. 4: 1. 

Observe : 1. All these exhortations to fear, to.be el Hi 
gent, to put forth effort, undoubtedly imply the possibility of 
failure. It is a palpable absurdity to exhort men to hold on 
to that which it is impossible for them to lose. A christian 
can or cannot fall irom grace. If he cannot tall, then the 
exhortation not to fall is absurd and senseless. Suppose a 
man on some high mountain is chained to a rock with iron 
fetters, that could not be broken ; and another should stand 
off shouting: "Take heed lest you fall" would not the ex- 
hortation be ridiculous non-sense ? The application is easy. 

Fourth Proposition. — The possibility of filling from 
Grace is evident from examples contained, in the Scriptures. 

Proofs. — Holding faith, and a good conscience ; which some 
having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck : Of whom 
is Hymeneus and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, 
that they may learn not to blaspheme. 1 Tim. 1 : 19. 



70 The Methodist Armor. 

Observe: 1. These persons once had faith and a good 
conscience, else they could not have wrecked or cast away 
what they never had. 2. They made shipwreck of this 
saving faith. 3. What is shipwrecked is entirely lost. A 
wrecked vessel is totally ruined. Angels fell from their 
original state of celestial holiness. Our first parents fell 
from their original purity. Judas fell from his apostleship 
hy transgressions. King Saul was once a good man. "God 
gave him another heart," but he fatally backslid, and "died 
for his transgressions which he committed against the Lord." 
Solomon was clearly, at one time, a saintly man, but he evi- 
dently apostatized, and died, said Josephus, "ingloriously." 

The dogma — once in grace, always' in grace — is a very 
fatal error. A man gets a ticket, sits down in the cars, folds 
his hands, and says to himself: "Weil, I bought my ticket, 
I am in the train, and now I will go to sleep. It is the en- 
gineer's business to run the train and watch out for danger. 
It is the business of the Conductor to land me safely at my 
journey's end. I have nothing to do but to sleep." This is 
about the way men reason who believe in final perseverance. 
And any one can see the deadening and sleep-producing in- 
fluence, the doctrine has upon the human heart. But the 
Bible instead of encouraging such a state, commands us to 
Watch — WorZ; out your own salvation — Give all diligence to 
make your calling and election sure. Hundreds of warnings 
stand all through the Bible like mountains with a gioon y 
grandeur — stern, portentous, awful, and sublime, as Mount 
Sinai when the Lord descended upon it in fire, storm-clouds, 
and thunders, that shook the hills of the earth, "that the 
fear of God may be upon us, and that we sin not." They 
sternly rebuke the folly of supposing that because God has 
delivered us from our former sins, we need have no anxiety 
about our final salvation. 



Orders ix the Methodist Ministry. 77 

CHAPTER VI. 
ORDERS IN THE METHODIST MINISTR Y. 

Methodism recognizes but two Orders in the ministry — 
The Deacon and Presbyter. It also, recognizes a third office, 
that of Bishop, which is presbyterial in order but episcopal 
in office. Methodism occupies medium ground between 
prelacy on the one hand and parity of. the ministry on the 
other. Roman Catholics and the Episcopalians believe in 
three orders — that of a bishop, presbyter and deacon. 
Presbyterians, Baptists and Conoreoritionalists maintain one 
order only— that of the presbyter. "We believe that two 
orders are recognized in the Bible. 

I. Deacons. 

The Deaeonship is a subordinate grade and order of the 
Ministry. Deacons among Presbyterians and Baptists are 
simply lay officers, but among Methodists they are a subor- 
dinate order of Ministers. Methodism here is on Scriptural 
ground. Stephen aw.s a Deacon, one of the "first seven." 
He was a powerful preacher, "being full of the Holy Ghost." 
When the Jews heard his sermon, which is recorded in Acts 
7, "they were cut to the heart." He was duly ordained by 
the apostles. Philip Avas another Deacon and a preacher. 
"Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and 'preached 
Christ unto them." Acts 8 : 5. He had a great revival at 
that place. "But when they believed Philip, preaching the 
things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of 
-Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women." 
"And there was great joy in that city." Philip expounded 
the Scriptures to the "Ethiopian eunuch," and administered 



78 The Methodist Armor. 

to him the rite of baptism. The point we make is that 
Deacons are ministers, which is clearly proved by the above 
citations of Scripture. A Methodist Deacon can perform all 
the ministerial functions of an Elder except that of consecrat- 
ing the elements of the Lord's Supper. 

II. Elders. 

1. Presbyter or Elder is a higher order and office of the 
ministry. It designates an order of men whose duties are to 
preach, to administer the ordinances, and watch over the 
church. "The Elders which are among you I exhort, who 
am also an Elder. Feed the flock of God which is among 
you, taking the oversight thereof." 1 Peter 5 : 1-2. 

2. Elders have authority of governing the churches. 
"Those Elders that rule well should be counted worthy of 
double honor." 1 Tim. 5 : 17. The people are exhorted to 
"obey them that have rule over them, and to submit them- 
selves." Heb. 13 : 17. 

3. Elders have the power of ordination. Timothy was or- 
dained by "the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery" or 
body of Elders. 1 Tim. 4 : 14. They were associates of 
ecclesiastical authority with the apostles. The decrees passed 
at Jerusalem to regulate the churches "were ordained of the 
apostles and Elders:' See Acts 15 : 2-6,22-23; Acts 1G : 4; 
1 Tim. 5 : 17. As all churches agree that the Eldership is 
an ecclesiastical order, it is not necessary to dwell longer on 
this subject. 

III. Bishops. 

"Bishops are not a distinct order, but officers, elected by 
the body of elders for general superintendency, and for 
greater convenience in regard to ordination, and to secure 
unity and greater efficiency in administration, and this was 
unquestioned for hundreds of years. Now Methodism con- 



The Mode of Baptism. 79 

forms to this primitive arrangement." "Bishops and pres- 
byters, or elders, were originally the same, but as Jerome 
says, one of the elders was chosen as a president, and called 
Bishop by way of distinction, and some *of the functions per- 
taining to the whole body of the presbyters — as ordination 
for example — were committed to him, and like the name, 
confined to him. Thus he became prim us inter pares — first 
among equals." — Bishop 3IcTyeire. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE MODE OF BAPTISM. 

The essential elements of Baptism are : 

1. It must be administered in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 

2. It must be performed by a Gospel minister. Xo 
others are commissioned to baptize but ministers of Christ. 

3. The element to be used must be water only. This, 
only, is mentioned in the Scriptures. 

4. The person baptized must be a proper subject. 

"We conclude then that water applied in the name of tie 
Trinity, by a Gospel minister to a proper candidate is christian 
baptism. "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost." Matt. 28 : 19. 

It will be seen from the above definition, that the mode 
of baptism is not one of its essential elements; that all the 
essentials of baptism will be preserved when administered 
by the mode of pouring, sprinkling, or immersion. There- 
fore, the Methodist Church holds that the three modes are 
equally valid, but that the weight of evidence is in favor of 
pouring and sprinkling. Pouring and sprinkling are really 
only one mode, they being alike as to mode, the difference 



80 The Methodist Armor. 

being the freer use of water in pouring. The terms are 
borrowed from the Bible. " I will pour out My Spirit; and 
then will I sprinkle clean water upon you" 

We remarked that the weight of evidence is in favor of pour- 
ing or sprinkling. Real baptism is the regenerating influence 
of the Iioly Spirit in the heart. Water baptism is the sign 
of this grace in the heart. That mode which is most like 
the mode of the Spirit's operation is the true one. How does 
the Spirit come upon the soul ? Scripture teaches us on this 
point. "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty." Isa. 
44 : 3. "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye 
shall be clean." Ezek. 36 : 25. Thus when Peter was ad- 
dressing the company of Cornelius : "The Holy Ghost fell 
on all them that heard," and "on the Gentiles also was 
poured out the Gift of the Holy Ghost." Acts 10 : 44-47. 
Then Peter baptized those on whom the Holy Spirit was 
poured out. Now, as the Holy Spirit was poured upon the 
people, it is almost certain that Peter poured water upon them 
as the most fitting mode of baptism. The sign as to mode 
would be like the thing signified, and the thing signified w;as 
poured out. Again, it is said in reference to Christ's baptism : 
"The heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit 
descending (ike a doer and. lighting upon him" When God 
shows how He baptizes, the element descends upon the subject. 
Put immersion requires that the subject descend — fall upon — 
the element. The mode of the Holy Ghost baptism is pour- 
inep applying the Spirit to the soul ; and water baptism as the 
sign of this, should be poured, so as to make the sign corres- 
pond with the thing signified. But there is no resemblance 
between immersion, applying the candidate to the water and 
covering him up in it, and the pouring out the Spirit upon 
tla soul. The Spirit is shed upon us as rain upon the earth. 

Dr. Pope, a Wesleyan minister of England, says : 



The Mode of Baptism. 81 

"There are many considerations which lead us to regard 

affusion or sprinkling as the ordained form of the rite. The 
catholic design of the Gospel suggests that the simplest and 
most universally practicable ordinance would be appointed. 
Again, the most important realities of which baptism is only 
the sign are such as sprinkling or affusion indicates : the 
blood of atonement was sprinkled on the people and on the 
mercy-seat; and the gifts of the Holy Ghost are generally 
illustrated by the 'pouring of water and the anointing." 

Richard Watson in his "Institutes," says : "It is satis- 
factory to discover that all attempts made to impose upon 
christians a practice (immersion) repulsive to the feeling, 
dangerous to the health, and offensive to delicacy, is destitute 
of all Scriptural authority, and of really primitive practice." 
Nevertheless, our church, believing that the "essence of the 
rite" consists in applying water to the body in the name of 
the Trinity, says : ki Let every adult person, and the parents 
of every child to be baptized, have the choice either of im- 
mersion, sprinkling, or pouring." Dr. Raymond says: "JNTo 
Church, as such, except the Baptist, requires any particular 
form of baptism as a sine qua nan condition of membership." 
So it will be seen that the Methodists are not alone in 
allowing the choice of modes. • 

There is no command to baptize by immersion. The 
dutv of baptizing with water is commanded, but like the 
Lord's Supper, the mode of its administration is left unde- 
cided by any positive precept. The following Bible examples 
lead us to believe that the apostles administed it by pouring 
or sprinkling : 

I. Baptism of Paul. 

And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house ; and 
putting his hands on him said. Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, 
that appeared unto thee in the way as thou earnest, hath sent me, 



82 The Methodist Armor. 

that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy 
Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been 
scales : and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized. 

Acts 9 : 17, 18. 

Notes. 

1. jSTote that the rising up and baptizing arc closely con- 
nected. Dr. Armstrong says : "In the original, the language 
is much more definite than it appears in the English version." 
On the expression "arise and be baptized" (literally, standing 
up be baptized) and "he arose and was baptized" (literally, 
standing up he was baptized). Dr. J. H. Rice remarks cor- 
rectly : "According to the idiom of the Greek language, 
these two words do not make two different commands, as 
the English reader would suppose, when he reads 1. arise ; 
2. be baptized. But the participle (arise, literally, standing) 
simply modifies the signification of the verb, or rather is 
used to complete the action of the verb ; and, therefore, in- 
stead of warranting the opinion that Paul rose up, went out, 
and was immersed, it definitely and precisely expresses his 
posture when he received baptism." 

2. "Three days had he been sunk in feebleness and fast- 
ing, when he "arose and was baptized," and then "received 
meat and was str#igthened." Strange, that where every 
movement is detailed with wonderful minuteness, no £oin<s 
forth in his weakness to a river could have been mentioned. 
The whole air of it is that he just stood up from his prostra- 
tion, in order to be baptized while upon his feet" — Dr. 

Whedon. 

II. Baptism of the Jailer. 

And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, .and to all that 
were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, 
and washed their stripes : and was baptized, he and all his, straight- 
way. Acts 16: 32, 33. 



The Mode of Baptism. 83 

Notes. 

Notice a few points in this case : 1. The jailer and his 
family were "baptized at the hour of midnight in the prison. 
"And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed 
their stripes ; was baptized, he and all his, straightway." 2. 
The baptism took place in the prison. We have the authority 
of the apostles that they did not go out of the prison. Paul 
refused to leave the prison privily. He demanded that the 
magistrates themselves should take them out as publicly as 
they had put them in. Now, who can believe that Paul had 
gone out to some river at midnight — gone privily, secretly — 
and immersed the parties, and then slipped hack into the 
prison and daman del a public and honorable discharge from 
the prison after he had already been out. Can any one be- 
lieve that Paul was capable of such deception as this ? The 
refusal of the apostles to go out privily expressly implied that 
they had not been out the night before. Their language, if 
they had already been out, was based on concealment and 
equivication. The magistrates might have fairly replied, 
"With what face can these men pretend that they will not 
go out without formal and public dismissal, when they haA T e 
already gone out of their own accord and are now in prison 
only by voluntarily imprisoning themselves." No such 
hypocrisy can bo charged against them. The conclusion is 
inevitable that they had not been out of prison-bounds. 

3. Now observe another fact, there was no tank or 
c' stern in the prison where immersion could be performed. 
There is not the slightest ground for the wild supposition 
that a Roman prison was provided with anything like a 
baptistery. The public authority .that could thrust the in- 
nocent apostles all bloody with stripes into the irons of a 
dark dungeon, would not likely provide baths for the com- 



84 The Methodist Armor. 

fort of their victims. The Romans were too cruel to mitigate 
the sufferings of their prisoners. Besides, Philippi was lo- 
cated in the very latitude of "Snowy Thrace" where such 
things would not he needed. A bath, or tank, in a Roman 
prison ! As well expect to find a piano in the wigwam of a 
flat-headed Indian. There was a baptism in the prison, but 
most clearly it was not by immersion. To suppose that the 
jailer took his wife and family out of bed at midnight and 
went in search of a river to find some suitable place to have 
them immersed is simply absurd. Therefore, the jailer and 
his family were baptized in the prison, and hence by sprink- 
ling or pouring, as immersion would have been impossible 
under the circumstances. 

III. Baptism of Cornelius. 

While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all 
them which hoard the word. And they of the circumcision which 
believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that 
on the ({entiles also was poured out the gilt of the Holy Ghost. For 
they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then an- 
swered Peter. Can any man forbid water, that these should not be 
baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And 
he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then 
prayed they him to tarry certain days. Acts 10 : 44-48. 



The clear inference is that Cornelius and his household 
were baptized by pouring. The circumstances prove this. 

"They went to no river, they are not said to go down 
to any water, nor are Ave told that they had a hath adapted 
for such a purpose in their house. Peter's remark, about 
forbidding water, indicates that it was to he brought to him 
for the purpose of administering this rite. And, above all, 
it should he noticed, that when the" Apostle saw the Holy 
Spirit DESCENDING upon them, he was reminded of what 



The Mode of Baptism. 85 

Christ had said of John's baptizing with water. (Acts xi, 10.) 
Whence this instantaneous recollection and association of 
ideas, hut from the fact that the mode of water baptism was 
in form the same as that of the descent of the Holy Ghost ? 
Had either John or Peter baptized by dipping, the narrative 
and the allusion would have been grossly inconsistent, and 
calculated to mislead the most devout and clear-headed stu- 
dent of inspiration." — Rev. W. Thorn. 

TV. The Baptism of the Three Thousand. 

"Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized every one 
of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye 
shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Then they that gladly re- 
ceived his word were baptized : and the same day there were added 
unto them about three thousand souls." Acts 2 : 38-41. 

XOTES. 

1. That "they were all actually baptized on this day is 
evident ; and is admitted by our opponents, who assure us 
that baptism always preceded admission into the visible 
Church. Now, supposing the twelve Apostles to have been 
engaged in this work, and supposing immersion to have been 
the mode ; it must have been a most laborious, disagreeable, 
if not an impracticable undertaking to be accomplished in 
the course of five or six hours. It should be taken into the 
account, moreover, that at least twenty-four robing rooms 
and a dozen dipping places must have been obtained for the 
purpose. And if more agents assisted, and lightened the 
labor of each, a proportionate increase of both kinds of con- 
veniences must have been provided. 

2. iSTow, in Jerusalem itself, there was neither a river 
nor fountain of water. Kedron was little better than the 
common sewer of the city, and was dry except during the 
early and latter rains. Siloam was only a spring without the 
walls, not always flowing, the contents of which were some- 



86 The Methodist Armor. 

times sold to the people by measure ; and the pools supplied 
by its puny streams were cither used for washing sheep and 
similar purposes, rendering them unfit for ceremonial lustra- 
tions, or they were the property of persons not likely to lend 
them for washing apostate strangers in. The water used for 
domestic purposes was obtained from the rains of heaven and 
preserved in household tanks, and, of course, was guarded 
with the utmost care, and used with a rigid economy — it 
raining there at only two seasons of the year. It may be 
further mentioned that the fountain of Siloam "is the only 
place in the environs of Jerusalem where the traveler can 
moisten his linger, quench his thirst, and rest his head under 
the shadow of the cool rock, and on two or three tufts of 
verdure." — Lamartine. That the ease was precisely similar 
in the time of the Apostles may be clearly proved by refer- 
ence to the writings ot Josephus, their countryman and 
contemporary." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 

I. Buried with Him in Baptism. 

"Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Christ, 
were baptized into his death ? Therefore, we are buried with him 
by baptism into death." Rom. 6: ;->, 4. Col. 2: 12. 

Our Baptist friends falsely assume that the baptism re- 
ferred to here means ritual or water baptism, whereas it 
clearly refers to a spiritual baptism. 

"Baptized into Christ" and "h(i[>tizc<l in tke, nu?ne of 
Christ," are two very distinct thing's. The former means to 
be in the Spirit of Christ, to be like Christ, to be in Christ 
as the branch is in the vine. As: "For by one Spirit we 
are all baptized into one body.'" "For as many of you as have 



Objections Answered. 87 

been baptized into Christ, have put 'on Christ." These ex- 
pressions mean spiritual baptism — and not ritual or water 
baptism. Wherever water baptism is meant the form of 
expression is u in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost." And so the passage under consideration 
says : "Baptized into Christ" and not in the name of Christ. 

The apostle argues that renunciation of sin is death to 
sin, that as Christ died on the Cross, so the old Adam in 
man is crucified by renouncing sin. As Christ was buried 
from the scenes of external nature in the rock-tomb, so the 
christian, in baptismal dedication, is buried from the world 
in Christ's body — the Church. As Christ rose into- a new 
life, so the christian rises into a new life of holiness. ISTo 
reference whatever to the mode of baptism is found here. 
It is the sound more than the sense, that strikes our Baptist 
brethren. 

Rev. W. Thorn says : "Mr. Robinson, the Baptist his- 
torian, gives up the passage, justly observing that Paul could 
not have referred to any thing like an ordinary English in- 
terment, as the persons to whom he wrote did not bury their 
dead, but burnt them to ashes. Oilier leading Baptist writers 
have admitted that the original idea of burying is not the 
lowering of a corpse into a grave, but casting earth upon it, 
and thereby raising a barrow over it. ' Hence the entire 
argument, founded on these passages in favor of dipping, 
vanishes in a moment. 

But supposing the reference had been to the entombing 
o: Christ, the analogy is essentially defective. His precious 
body was carried into a room, hewn out of a rock, and laid 
upon a side bench ; a stone being rolled, not upon, but 
against the door, which was low and small. In this process 
there was not the slightest resemblance to dipping a person 
under water, no more than when the body of Dorcas was 



88 The Methodist Ahmor. 

carried up stairs and laid upon a bed. And he must be 
sadly at a loss for valid evidence in aid of immersion who 
seizes on this allusion to uphold his practice. 

As a spiritual resurrection, or a rising to newness of life, 
is avowedly the result of this baptism, so, unquestionably, a 
spiritual interment must be supposed to precede it. In the 
same connection we are said to be crucified with Christ, and 
planted together in the likeness of his death. Surely, this 
can refer only to a spiritual work in the soul, and therefore 
the burial cannot be consistently regarded as an exception. 
Mr. Maclean, a leading Baptist, says that in consequence of 
our covenant union to Christ, "we are so comprehended in 
and counted one with him as to have died in his death, been 
buried in his burial, and raised again in his resurrection." 
Here a physical similitude is quite out of the question. In- 
deed, the passage literally translated conveys not the least 
idea of such a resemblance : "As many of us as were bap- 
tized unto Christ Jesus were baptized unto his death ; there- 
fore Ave are buried with him (dia) through baptism unto 
death." Besides, those who regard this gracious renovation 
of soul as necessarily taking place at the font, or being the 
legitimate result of water baptism, and not as effected by the 
Holy Ghost, independent of that ordinance, will find it diffi- 
cult to repel the charge of advocating the doctrine of 
baptismal regeneration. " 

II. The Baptism of Christ. 

"Following Christ into the water." "Going down into 
the liquid grave." "Being buried with the Saviour beneath 
Jordan's rolling waves," are clap-trap words of much sound 
but of little sense. If you follow Christ strictly in baptism, 
you must wait till you are thirty years old, for He was not 
baptized until He bad reached that age. What was the 



Objections Answered. 89 

design of Christ's baptism ? Christ furnishes the answer : 
"It becomcth us to fulfill all righteousness." To fulfill 
righteousness is to be obedient to law. This law was not the 
moral but the law respecting the High Priesthood. The 
baptism of Christ was the public, formal inauguration and con- 
secration of Him to His priestly ministry. He was just en- 
tering on the age of thirty, the age at which the Levites 
began their ministry and the Rabbis their course of .teaching. 
The consecration of Aaron to the High-Priesthood was by 
washing , anointing, and consecration. Observe how this typical 
law T was completely fulfilled lry Christ. 1. He was washed 
by baptism ; 2. He was anointed by the Holy Ghost ; 8. and 
then consecrated to the Priestly office. Thus we see that 
Christ was "a High-Priest." That He was "called of God" 
to this office as was Aaron. That He was ordained and 
consecrated to the office of "High-Priest for evermore, that 
He might offer both gifts and sacrifice for sins." 

III. John Baptizing in Jordan. 

1. It is believed that immersing persons in Jordan was 
altogether impracticable. 

Rev. W. Thorn says : "The baptizing spot has been 
visited and minutely examined by many intelligent and 
credible travelers, who tell us that here "the river Jordan is 
of considerable width, the water turbulent, the bottom rocky, 
the edges of the bank abrupt, and the depth about six or 
seven feet close to the shore." Yolney says, "Its breadth 
between the two principal lakes, in few places, exceeds sixty 
or eighty feet, but its depth is ((bout ten or twelve" Monro 
says, "The river here, at the baptizing spot, forms an angle, 
etc. ; the width of it might be thirty-five yards, and the 
stream was running with the precipitous fury of a rapid ; the 
bank was steep, shelving off abruptly into deep water." 



90 The Methodist Armor. 

Thompson says, "It is exceeding deep, even at the edge of 
the inner bank." Dr. Shaw computes it "about thirty yards 
broad, and three yards in depth." Chateaubriand found the 
Jordan to be "six or seven feet deep close to the shore." 

2. Judging, then, from the places chosen, and the fonts 
constructed for immersion by our opponents, and indeed 
from the nature of the case, (unless men and women in 
John's time were twice as tall as at the present day !) I con- 
tend that dipping persons in the Jordan was altogether im- 
practicable, and unhesitatingly conclude that they were only 
aflused or sprinkled with the water of it." 

3. That John's baptism was not by immersion is clear 
from the vast number baptized by him. Dr. Hibbard proves 
that the population of Palistine at the time of John's minis- 
try, could not be less than six millions. Now the Bible says : 
"There went out unto him all the land of Judea, and they of 
Jerusalem, and all the region round about Jordan, and were 
all baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins." 
Dr. Hibbard contends that "Jerusalem, all Judea and the 
region round about Jordan" must mean the larger part of 
the population — and puts the number baptized at three millions 
— half of the population. John's ministry lasted only about 
ten months. He allows six hours a day and six days in the 
week for baptizing. And upon this calculation, shows that 
John had to' baptize tioo thousand and tiro hundred each hour. 
And this calculation shows the utter impossibility of it being 
done by immersion. 

Whatever may have been the mode of John's baptism, 
one thing is certain, that is, John's baptism was not the 
christian baptism. 

1. He did not baptize in the name of the Holy Trinity. 
And this is essential to christian baptism. "Go, ye therefore, 



Objections Answered. 91 

and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 

2. John's baptism was not initiatory into the church. 
It did not admit them into the Old Testament church, since 
those who received it, (being Jews) were already members of 
that church by circnmciscion. It did not admit them into 
the christian church, since that church had not been estab- 
lished. Just before the day of Pentecost, the members of 
the christian church numbered only "about one hundred and 
twenty" Xow of course, John had baptized thousands 
before this, and if his baptism had admitted them in the 
christian church, the count would have been tens of thou- 
sands instead of "one hundred and twenty" The fact is the 
christian church was not instituted till after John's death. 

3. It is rendered still more evident from the fact that 
Paul re-baptized certain persons at Ephesus, who had re- 
ceived John's baptism. Acts 19 : 5. 

IV. Bapto and Baptidzo. 

The argument of the immersionists is : "My position is 
that baptidzo always signifies to dip, never expressing anything but 
mode" — Dr. Carson. 

The hinge on which the whole argument turns, is that 
the classic meaning of the terms Bapto and Baptidzo is 
always but one thing, to dip, immerse. Can this be establish- 
ed ? No. Let us see. "Dr. Dale, (a learned divine of 
England) renders Bapto dip, fourteen times ; dye, fourteen 
times ; imbue, seven times ; tem'per, one time ; stain, one 
time ; wash, four times ; moisten, two times ; wet, one time 
— forty-seven. Of these forty-seven cases, as rendered by 
him we have : 1. Thirty-three against fourteen for dip. 2. 
In no case was there an immersion, i. e. sinking" — Dr. Ditzler. 

Dr. Ditzler in his new work on Baptism gives the fol- 
io win o" cases : 



92 The Methodist Armor. 

1. Of a frog pierced and slain, Homer says, "He fell 
without even looking upward, and the lake (ehapteto) was 
tinged with blood." Any body knows that the lake could 
not possibly be immersed in the blood of a frog, but that the 
blood of the frog tinged the water with a red color. 

2. Hippocrates, a Greek scholar says of a dyeing sub- 
stances : "When it drops upon garments they arc (baptetai) 
dyed or stained." Here we see that immersion is out of the 
question. 

3. Aristophanes speaking of an old comic writer, says : 
"Smearing himself (baptomenos) with frog-colored paint." 
Here the term cannot mean dip or plunge. 

4. Aristotle speaking of a coloring substance says : 
"Being pressed, it moistens (baptei) and dyes the hand." 
No immersion here. 

5. Plutarch says : "Thou may est be bathed (baptizce) 
but it is not permitted thee to go under the water." 

6. Clemens Alexandrinus says of a penitent : "He was 
baptized a second time with tears." Could a man be im- 
mersed literally in his own tears ? An utter impossibility. 
We see now without quoting more instances, that Bapto and 
Baptidzo do not always and uniformly mean to dip, plunge 
or immerse. And therefore the immersion al theory com- 
pletely breaks down. 

Let the reader observe : The distinction between sacred and 
secular meaning of words. Words change their meaning in 
the course of time. In the Greek language, the word PresbyU r 
meant simply "an old man." In the Bible the same word 
means a preacher old or young. Timothy though young in 
age was a presbyter in the church. In the old Greek lan- 
guage, a pastor meant "a keeper of sheep," in the Bible, it 
signifies a man in charge of a church. Dcipnon in Greek 
meant a sumptuous and and royal feast ; in the Bible, it sig- 



Objections Answered. 93 

nifies the Lord's Supper. JEkklesia in Greek meant a political 
assembly, in the Bible, it is translated a church. It follows 
conclusively that if Baptidzo did mean in the Greek classics, 
to dip, or immerse, it proves nothing unless it can be shown 
that it means the same thing in the Xew Testament. 

The conclusion of the whole matter to which we come is : 

1. There is nothing in the history of John's baptism, 
nothing in the practice of the apostles, nothing in the mis- 
cellaneous allusions to baptism in the Epistles, nothing in 
the meaning of the word baptize, to authorize the belief that 
any particular mode of baptism, is essential to the validity of 
this rite. 

2. AVhile it cannot be determined with absolute cer- 
tainty, whether sprinkling, pouring, or immersion was the 
mode of baptism practiced by the apostles, immersion is the 
least probable of the three, most inconvenient, and the least ex- 
pressive of Holy Ghost baptism. 

3. To require immersion in order to admission into the 
church is contrary to the teaching of the Bible and to "teach 
for doctrine the commandments of men." And to exclude 
pious christians from the Lord's table because they have not 
been immersed is narrow-hearted bigotry. 

4. Baptism is enjoined upon all nations, and pouring is 
adapted to all climates, but immersion is not. How could 
immersion be performed in those countries where for six 
months in the year, every pond, river and ocean is converted 
into solid ice ? 

5. Baptism by sprinkling can be performed on persons, 
who profess religion on a dying bed, but immersion cannot. 

6. Baptism by pouring comports with decency and pro- 
priety, but docs immersion ? 



94 The Methodist Armor. 



CHAPTER IX. 

INFANT BAPTISM. 

I. Infant Baptism as taught in the Old Testament. 

1. In tracing back the history of the Jewish Church, we 
find that infants were members of that church. This right 
of infant membership was established when that church was 
organized. "Every man child among you shall be circum- 
cised." "He that is eight days old shall be circumcised." 
"The uncircumcised shall be cut off from his people." 

2. The door through which children entered into the Old 
Testament church was circumcision. 

3. The visible church of God has always been the same. 
The christian church to-day is the Old Testament church 
purged from the apostate Jews. And around this purged 
Old Testament church, as a nucleus, the New Testament 
church was formed. John the Baptist said of Christ : 
"Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge 
his floor (the old church) and gather his wheat (those re- 
maining true) into the garner." 

The good olive tree representing the church of the Jews 
was not plucked up and a new one planted in its place. 

Proof. — Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou 
bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The 
branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well ; because 
of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not 
highrminded, but fear : For if God spared not the natural brandies, 
take heed lest he also spare not thee. For if thou wert cut out of the 
olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to na- 
ture into a good olive tree ; how much more shall these, which be the 
natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree ! Rom. 11 : 1S-24. 

Remarks. — By the "good olive tree," Paul can mean 
nothing hut the Jewish church. And what does he say 



Infant Baptism. 95 

about it ? Was tins good olive tree plucked up by the roots ? 
No. He asserts the continuance of the good olive tree in life 
and vigor. The unbelieving Jews as worthless branches 
were cut off, while the believing Gentiles are being grafted 
into the fatness of the tree. But mark that the trunk of the 
good old olive tree remains the same. The engrafted 
Gentile partakes of the root and fatness of the olive tree. It cer- 
tainly was not cut down, nor rooted up, but is still flourish- 
ing in great beauty and fruitfulness. But furthermore, the 
apostle, in the light of prophecy, foresees the restoration of 
the Jews. "These," says he, "the natural branches shall be 
grafted in again — shall be grafted into their own olive tree." 
When the Jews come into the christian church now existing, 
they will come into their own church. But how could this 
be unless the church be essentially the same under the Old 
and New dispensations ? 

4. The right of infant membership existing in the 
church has never been repealed. It stands intact to-day. No 
change has occurred. No proclamation has been made re- 
pealing the law of infant membership. And it is a well 
known fact that a law once passed remains in force until 
formally repealed. 

Now as infants were members of the Jewish church, 
and as the Gospel church is but a continuance of the Jewish, 
and no repeal having taken place of this law of infant mem- 
bership, the conclusion is inevitable that the right of infant 
membership remains intact. 

5. Circumcision with other forms of the Jewish church, 
gave way to baptism in the Christian church. Baptism, like 
circumcision, is an initiatory rite of admission into the visible 
church. As circumcision was the gate for the Jew and the 
Gentile proselyte into the Jewish church ; so baptism is the 
door into the Christian church. Again, baptism, like cir- 



96 The Methodist Armor. 

cumcision, is a solemn dedication to God's service. Once 
more, baptism, like circumcision, is a sign and seal of God's 
covenant. The children of believers hold a similar relation 
to the Christian church as the Jewish children did to the 
Jewish church — the former entering the church by baptism, 
the latter by circumcision. 

II. Christ's Recognition of Infant Membership. 

Proofs. — Then were there brought unto him little children, that 
he should put his hands on them, and pray : and the disciples re- 
buked them. But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them 
not, to come unto me ; for of such is the kingdom of heaven. And 
he laid his hands on them, and departed thence. Matt. 19: 13-15. 
And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them : 
but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called 
them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and 
forbid them not : for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say 
unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little 
child shall in no wise enter therein. Luke 18 : 15-17. 

"Suffer little children to come unto me, .... for of such 
is the kingdom of God." What is the meaning of kingdom of 
God ? The kingdom is sometimes used to signify the visible 
church on earth. "The kingdom of heaven is like a net, 
that was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind." Matt. 
13 : 47. Then again it is used to mean the church of God 
in a state of glory. "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh 
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." If we take 
the first meaning, then the passage would read, For of such 
is the visible church or such belong to the church on earth. 
The church was then the Old Testament church. The day 
of Pentecost had not come when the Christian church come 
of the Old into the New. These children being the children 
of Jewish parents had been introduced into that church by 
circumcision. They were then members of that Jewish 
church. Hence He says, such are members of the church — of 
the kingdom of God. Or let us take the other meaning — 



Infant Baptism. 97 

that the kingdon of God means the Heavenly state. Then 

it teaches that all children are horn into a salvahle state. 
The atonement of Christ puts them in a state of salvation. 
All believe that children dying in infancy arc saved. They 
are then in a salvahle state. If they have then the moral 
state of salvation, we think it is right to give them the sign 
of that state. Baptism is an outward sign of an inner grace. 
Yon say, when a man is horn of the Spirit, he is in a state 
of salvation, and is a fit subject for baptism. Having saving 
grace, the thing signified, you give him the sign of it. That 
is your reason for baptizing adults. For the same reason, 
we baptize children. The Bible authorizes us to baptize all 
persons who are fit subjects, be they infants or adults. The 
moral state decides the question of baptism ; and not ages or 
classes of persons. If a grown person be a fit subject or if a 
child be a fit subject, baptize him. And for this reason it is 
not necessary to have an express command to baptize infants. 
There is no command to baptize persons ten, twenty, fifty, 
or one year old. The authority is to baptize all who are fd 
subjects of the kingdom, young or old. 

We are shut up to one of two conclusions — either infants 
are not fit to go to heaven, or admit their fitness for baptism. 
For if you admit their fitness for heaven, that implies that 
they have saving grace, and saving grace is universally con- 
ceded to be the ground of baptism. We must believe then, 
either the horrid doctrine of infant damnation or the doctrine 
of infant baptism. 

III. The Apostles Preached the Doctrine of Infant 
Church Memeership. 

Peter in his pentecostal sermon expressly declared "The 
promise is unto you and your children." The promise re- 
ferred to is that which is contained in the Abraharaie 



98 The Methodist Armor. 

c )venant. Never was there a better time for Peter to declare 
the repeal of the law requiring the children to be brought 
into the church than this. If that law had been repealed 
now that they were passing out of the Old into the New 
Church, Peter, it seems to me, would have said — "Repent 
and be baptized .... for the promise is unto you, but your 
children are excluded under the New dispensation." But lie 
said the promise is to you and your children. Christ had 
commanded him before — "Feed my lambs," and he knew 
•what he was talking about. 

IV. Family Baptisms. 

Proofs. — And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, 
of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us : whose 
heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were 
spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized, and her household, she 
besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, 
come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us. 
-Acts 16: 14, 15. 

Notice, nothing is said about her family exercising any 
religious duty, but it is said of her, "The Lord opened her 
heart and she attended to the things spoken by Paul." As 
an adult person, she repented and believed. And as nothing 
is said about her family repenting and believing, but that 
they were baptized, the inference is that her family consisted 
of children too young to believe and that they were baptized 
on the faith of the mother. 

The Jailek's Family. 

And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt 
Ik: saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the 
Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same 
hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, lie 
and all his, straightway. Acts 1(>: 81-34. 

The term "household," in the ordinary sense, includes 

all the children in a family. When it is said: "Joseph 



Infant Baptism. 99 

nourished his father and his brethren, and all his father's 
household with bread, according to their families,''] little 
children are included. When the industrious mother is 
described as "looking- Avell to the ways of her household," 
the term includes her children ; for it is said "her children 
rise up and call her blessed." 

Many attempts have been made to prove that there were 
no children in these families, but all such attempts are vain. 
The probabilities are against all such reasoning. Besides 
these families, Paul baptized "the household" of Stephanas. 
As households or families generally include children, we 
have no right to exclude them from these mentioned in the 
Bible. "Who can believe that not one infant was found in 
all these families, and that Jews accustomed to the circum- 
cisions, and Gentiles accustomed to the lustration of infants, 
should not have also brought them to baptism ?" — Bengel. 
"The practice of infant baptism does not rest on inference 
but on the continuity and identity of the covenant of grace 
to Jew and Gentile, the sign only of admission being 
altered." — Alford. 

The apostolic practice was that of baptizing entire 
families. That is certain. Now if modern preachers follow 
them, they will baptize entire families, and if they go on in 
doing so, it is certain that they will baptize infants, for the 
continued practice of baptizing entire families will neces- 
sarily result in the baptism of infants. To follow apostolic 
example is to baptize entire families, and the continued 
practice of baptizing entire families is to baptize infants. 

Historical Statement. 

"From the year 400 A. D. to 1150, no society of men 
in all the period of seven hundred and fifty years ever pre- 
tended to say that it was unlawful to baptize infants. Irenseus 



100 The Methodist Armor. 

who lived in the second century declares expressly that the 
church learned from the apostles to baptize children." — 
Watson. 80 far as history affords any light, the baptism of 
children was practiced down to the eleventh century. About 
1130, a body of christians called Waldenses entertained the 
idea that infants were incapable of salvation, and therefore 
rejected infant baptism. About 1520 the Anabaptists re- 
newed this objection, which the Baptists took up and stoutly 
maintain. 

Since the Reformation of Luther by far the greater por- 
tion of christians have believed and practiced the baptism of 
infants. The number of christians in the whole world, is 
put down by Prof. Schem at 418,000,000 ; all of these— 
except about 4,000,000 belonging mainly to the Baptist 
church — believe in and practice infant baptism. 

Objections. 

It is asked : "What is the benefit of baptism to children ?" 
"What does the child know about it?" But don't you see 
that these objections bear just as hard against circumcision 
instituted by God as against infant baptism ? What was the 
benefit of circumcision to children only eight days old ? 
What did these infants know about it ? We answer, God 
saw benefit in it else lie would not have commanded it. 

Again, the stale and standing objection is : "There is no 
express command for Infant Baptism." But there is a com- 
mand for circumcision in the Old Testament, and baptism 
takes the place of circumcision. But waiving this point, 
will you show an express command for admitting women to 
the communion table. There is none. There is no com- 
mand requiring baptism as a pre-requisite to the communion, 
yet a certain church acts as though there was. There is not 
a remote hint — much less a command — in the Bible, author- 



Government of the Church. 101 

izing the practice of eldse communion, yet the very church, 
that ohjects to Infant Baptism because there is no express 
"Thus saith the Lord," rigidly enforces the law of close 
communion without a single hint of Bible authority for so 
doing. 



CHAPTER X. 

GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH. 

I. The General Conference. 

The Supreme government of the Church is vested in 
the General Conference. It is a law-making body. It is 
composed of the Bishops of the whole church, and of minis- 
terial and lay delegates, who are elected by the several 
Annual Conferences. The clerical members of each Annual 
Conference elect one representative of their number for 
every twenty-eight of the whole body. An ecpial number of 
lay delegates is then elected by the lay members. 

The Business of the General Confernce. ' 

1. The election of Bishops when deemed necessary. 

2. To create and re-adjust the boundaries of the Annual 
Conferences. 

3. To revise the laws and rules of the Discipline. 

4. To superintend the interest of Foreign Missions. 

5. To elect officers to conduct the business of the Gener- 
al Publishing House. 

These items embrace the leading matters of the General 
Conference work. That body however has full powers to 
make rule? and regulations for the church under the follow- 
ing restrictions : (1) They cannot change the Articles of 
Religion, or the standards of doctrine ; (2) cannot change cer- 
tain ratio of Annual Conference representation; (3) canno L 



102 The Methodist Armor. 

destroy the Episcopacy ; (4) cannot change the General Rules 
of the United Societies ; (5) cannot destroy the privileges of 
trial as prescribed in Discipline; (6) cannot appropriate the 
produce of the Publishing House otherwise than specified in 
Discipline. No change can he made in reference to the 
subjects protected by the Restrictive Rules except by a ma- 
jority of two-thirds of the General Conference, and the con- 
currence of three-fourths of the members of the several Annual 
Conferences. Our Articles of Religion and doctrinal standards 
cannot be revoked or altered even by such a large vote as 
the above. The General Conference meets once in four 
years, its sessions lasting about four weeks, and is presided 
over by the Bishops, each one presiding in tarn, a day at a 
time. 

The lay delegates appeared for the first time in the 
General Conference in 1870, the General Conference of 1866 
having recommended it, and the Annual Conferences having 
concurred, it became a law and took effect in 1870. The 
introduction of the lay element into the General Conference 
puts the actual government of the church equally into the 
hands of the laymen and the ministry. It is the only law- 
making power in the church, the Annual Conferences being 
only administrative and judicial. "The General Conference 
carries out its laws through an executive arrangement con- 
sisting of the Bishops and Presiding Elders. By their agen cy, 
it exercises a general superintendence over the church." 

II. Annual Conferences. 

1. The ministers within certain boundaries assemble 
each year, and this meeting is called an Annual Conference. 
It is composed of all the itinerant ministers in full connection, 
and of four lay delegates (one of whom may be a local 
preacher) from each Presiding Elder's District. The la}' 



Government of the Church. 103 

members have equal rights with the ministerial, "to partici- 
pate in all the business of the Conference, except such as 
involves ministerial character." The Bishops, by virtue of 
their office, are Presidents of the Annual Conferences. The 
Bishop presiding, after careful consultation with the Presid- 
ing Elders, appoints annually each minister to his field of 
labor. 

2. The Business of the Conference. — The principal items 
of business are the following: (1) To receive from each 
pastor a report of his year's work. (2) To admit candidates 
for pastoral work on trial, or into full connection. (3) To 
inquire into the life and administration of each pastor. (4) 
To try any who may be accused of immorality or heterodoxy. 

(5) To examine into the qualifications of candidates for 
Deacon's and Elder's orders and elect the same to such orderr. 

(6) To inaugurate measures to promote the work of missions, 
Sunday Schools, education, within the boundaries of the 
Conference. (7) To distribute the collected funds for the 
relief of the worn-out ministers, and the widows or orphans 
of the deceased ministers who died members of the' Confer- 
ence. (8) The appointment of the preachers. Whatever 
may be the size and number of the Conferences, they are all 
organized on the same plan and governed by the same laws. 
There arc about 40 Conferences in the M. E. Church, South. 

III. District Conferences. 

1. A District Conference is held annually in each Pre- 
siding Elder's District. It is composed of all the Travelling 
and local preachers within the bounds of the District, and a 
certain number of laymen from each pastoral charge, which 
number is fixed by each Annual Conference. The Presiding 
Elder is the president unless a Bishop be present. 

2. The Business of this Conference.— (1) It is the duty of 



104 The Methodist Armor. 

this Conference to inquire respecting the spiritual condition 
of each pastoral charge, and as to the attendance of the peo- 
ple upon the ordinances and social meeting of the church. 

(2) To inquire respecting new fields for establishing missions, 
and what existing missions ought to be raised to circuits. 

(3) To inquire if the collections for church purposes are 
properly attended to, and as to the comfortableness of churches 
and parsonages. (4) To inquire into the condition of Sunday 
Schools, manner of conducting them, and adopt suitable 
measures for insuring success ; and also as to the educational 
enterprises of the District ; and take a general oversight of 
all the temporal and spiritual affairs of the District, subject 
to the provisions of the Discipline. (5) To elect four lay 
delegates — one of whom may be a local preacher — to the 
ensuing Annual Conference. (6) These Conferences give 
prominence to preaching, prayer meetings, love-feasts, and 
revival exercises. 

IV. The Quarterly Conference. 

The Quarterly Conference is an official meeting held 
four times a year for the purpose of transacting the business 
of each one of the pastoral charges. 

It is composed of the pastor in charge, the local preach- 
ers, exhorters, stewards, trustees, class-leaders, superintend- 
ents of Sunday Schools, and secretaries of the Church Con- 
ferences. 

The Presiding Elder — in his absence the preacher in 
charge — is president of the meeting. He also appoints the 
times of holding the meetings, signs the records, and decides 
all questions of law. 

Its Business. — 1. It takes account of the temporal and 
spiritual welfare of the church ; 2. elects trustees, stewards, 
superintendents of Sunday Schools ; 3. licenses persons to 



Government of the Church. 105 

preach or exhort ; 4. tries local preachers when accused, and 
is a court of appeal to laymen tried in the church : 5. recom- 
mends suitable persons to join the Annual Conference, and 
such local preachers as desire Deacon's or Elder's orders. 

The minutes of this Conference must be regularly re- 
corded, signed and preserved. All ministers of every office 
and grade must first be licensed by a Quarterly Conference. 
iNone can get into the Annual Conference except they be 
recommended by it. The functions of this body are organic, 
its work is executive and judicial, and is closely related to 
the order and prosperity of the church. It is the great wheel 
moving the business machinery of each circuit, station, and 
mission, and is indispensable to our system. 

V. The Church Conference. 

This is a meeting of each society in a pastoral charge. 
The pastor is president. A secretary is elected to note the 
proceedings. The roll of members called. All the members 
of the society have a right to participate in the meeting. It 
is a kind of a mass-meeting of that particular church. 

The Object of the, Meeting is : — To lay before all the mem- 
bers reports — 1. Of the pastor as to the state of his work; 
2. Of the class-leader ; 3. Of the superintendent of the Sun- 
day Schools ; 4. Of the stewards. 

The meeting further inquires into what is being done 
for the relief of the poor, for the cause of missions, tor the 
circulation of our religious literature, and any other matter 
that may advance the good of the church. 

The meeting "may strike off the names of any avIio, on 
account of removal or other cause, have been lost sight of 
twelve months : provided however, that if such member ap- 
pears and claims membership, he may be restored bv a vote 
of the meeting.' 1 The information given bv the above re- 



106 The Methodist Armor. 

ports is designed to enlist the energies of the whole church 
in its local work of benevolence and spiritual enterprise. 
The main end of the Church Conference is to put every 
member to work for the cause of Christ. 



CHAPTER XL 

CHURCH OFFICERS. 

In the Ministry: Bishops, Presiding Elders, Pastors, Local 

Preachers. 

I. Bishops. 

Bishops are constituted by the election of the General 
Conference and the laying on of the hands of three bishops. 
Their duties are : 1. To preside in the General and Annual 
Conferences ; 2. to make the appointments of the preachers ; 
3. to form the districts, circuits and stations ; 4. to ordain 
Bishops, Elders and Deacons ; 5. to decide questions of law; 
6. to prescribe a course of study for young ministers ; 7. to 
change preachers in the interval of Conferences whenever 
necessary ; 8. to travel through the connection at large and 
oversee the temporal and spiritual welfare of the whole 
church. The Episcopacy of Methodism is not diocesan, like 
that of the Protestant Episcopal Church, but is eo-extensice 
with the territory of the church at large. It differs from the 
Episcopal church mainly in not claiming apostolic succession. 
Methodist Bishops have neither legislative nor voting power 
in the Conferences. They, according to our theory, are 
Elders as to ministerial order, and Episcopal as to the high 
office of general superintendency. Our moderate Episcopacy 
does not claim any divine right for its existence, but affirms 
that no specific form of church polity is prescribed in the 
New Testament, and therefore, the church is free to adopt 



Church Officers. 107 

such a form as in its judgment, will best promote the cause 
of Christ. We claim that our Episcopacy preserves the unity 
of the church, is itself a connectional bond, and serves to 
strengthen and maintain all other bonds by which the several 
churches are united in one great connectional communion. 
It is the most efficient agency in distributing ministerial 
talents over the world. So far as human wisdom is com- 
petent to judge, it is the most effective form of church 
government known among men. 

The distinction between the non Episcopal branches of 
Methodism and the Episcopal is clearly marked. Wherever 
Methodism has abandoned the Episcopacy and the Presiding 
Eldership, the connectional bonds have been loosened, diffi- 
culties arose and serious losses sustained. "English Metho- 
dists have failed to hold their affiliated Conference, and one 
after another seeks distinct government." The non Episcopal 
Methodist churches both of America and England have not 
prospered so abundantly as the Episcopal Methodist churches 
in the two countries named. The vast superiority in num- 
bers of American Methodism over that in England is 
attributable mainly to our Episcopal form of government. 
Dr. Dixon, one of the leading Wesle}^an ministers, said, we 
must look to American Methodism to find the model church 
of Mr. Wesley. 

II. Presiding Elders. 

The Presiding Elder is appointed by the Bishop, and is 
put in charge of a District, having from twelve to twenty 
pastoral charges in it. 

No class of ministers in the Methodist economy fills a 
more important position than the Presiding Elders. This 
will appear when we consider : 

First. Their broad field of ministerial usefulness. They 



108 The Methodist Armor. 

preach over the widest scope of territory, to the largest con- 
gregations of appreciative hearers, and under the most in- 
spiring circumstances. Quarterly meeting occasions have 
always been, among Methodists at least, the most attractive 
and fruitful of good results. There is usually the fullest 
attendance of the members of the particular church where 
these meeting are held, and also official brethren of other 
churches. And furthermore, it is the privilege of the Pre- 
siding Elders to preach to such congregations almost every 
Sunday in the year. And on such occasions, they preach 
their select, most powerful and impressive sermons. The 
held of ministerial usefulness, then, opened to the Presiding 
Elders, is vastly superior to that of other preachers. In the 
light of these facts, it seems strange to hear the question 
asked — as it is sometimes — "What is the use of Presiding 
Elders ?" If, as it is conceded cheerfully, the pastors of 
stations and circuits deserve to be well paid, highly esteemed 
and dearly loved because of their ministerial usefulness, then 
the Presiding Elders have a higher claim for the same bene- 
dictions of the people. 

Secondly. The official duties of the Presiding Elder are 
many and weighty. And for the information of the people 
it may be well for us to specify. The duties of the Presiding 
Elder are : 1. To travel through his District, in order to 
preach and oversee the spiritual and temporal affairs of the 
church. 2. To take charge of all the preachers in his Dis- 
trict in the absence of the Bishop. 3. To change, receive, 
and suspend preachers in his District (hiring the intervals of 
the Conferences. 4. To hold four Quarterly Conferences in 
each pastoral charge during the year. 5. To decide all 
questions of law which may come up in the regular business 
of the Quarterly Conference. 6. To sec that every part of 
the Discipline be enforced in.. his District, 'Are. 7. If any 



Church Officers. 109 

preacher dies or leaves his work, the Presiding' Elder, as far 
as possible, fills his place with another. 8. lie is ex-officio 
president of the District Conference in the absence of the 
Bishop. There are some other minor duties not mentioned, 
bnt we have specified enough to show the importance of 
this office. 

Thirdly. One of the most important functions of the 
Presiding Eldership, is the relation it holds to the Bishop in 
making the appointments of the preachers. Every appoint- 
ment must be made with a thorough knowledge of the 
qualifications of the preaeher appointed and the demands of 
the work to which he is appointed. And the Bishop can 
get such knowledge only through the Presiding Elders. The 
Presiding Elders then must see and hear for the Bishop, and 
speak for the people and the preachers in the matter of ap- 
pointments. As they have traveled through all the work 
and watched carefully the work of each pastor and wants of 
each charge, they are admirably well prepared to represent 
the wants of the people and the claims and adaptation of the 
preachers. So their advice becomes essential to the Bishop 
in order that his appointments may be judiciously made. 
They are middle men, and like all men occupying such a posi- 
tion, they are likely to be blamed, though they may have 
done their best both for the people and preachers. There is 
no work so carefully and prayerfully done as making the 
appointments of the preachers. 

III. Pastors. 

The preacher in charge of work is one who has the 
pastoral care of a station, circuit or mission by the appoint- 
ment of the regularly constituted authority of the church. 
He may be an Elder, Deacon, or an unordained preacher on 
trial, or a local preacher employed by the Presiding Elder. 



110 The Methodist Armor. 

His duties are : 1. To preach; 2. to receive, try and 
expel' members convicted of immorality ; 3. to appoint class- 
leaders ; 4. to see that the sacraments are duly observed ; 5. 
to hold Quarterly meetings in the absence of the Presiding 
Elders ; 6. to report to the Quarterly Conference the general 
condition of his work ; 7. to promote all benevolent collec- 
tions of the church ; 8. to report the number and state of 
the Sunday Schools. 

Pastors are represented in the Bible as having "author- 
ity" and "rule" over the churches. "Obey them that have 
the rule over you." They are "to preach the Word," to 
"teach, baptize, to feed the flock." They are sometimes 
called "Elders," because of their oversight ; called pastors 
because of their watcheare ; ministers because of the services 
rendered ; watchmm because of their wideawake vicjilcn.ee ; 
embassadors because of their authority to effect peace between 
God and man. The three functions of preaching the Word, 
loatching over the congregation, and ruling in the congrega- 
tion by the exercising of discipline, are clearly laid down in 
the New Testament. The responsibility of all these rests 
upon the pastor. 

IV. Local Preachers. 

Local preachers arc constituted by the authority of the 
Quarterly Conference and arc amendable to that body. 
They must come before that body properly recommended by 
the individual church of which they are members. Such 
applicants are licensed to preach when on examination the 
Conference' is satisfied that they have gifts, graces and useful- 
ness. Local or lay preachers began with the early years of 
Methodism. They have always been a powerful arm in the 
Methodist work. They support themselves by secular labor, 
and preach in their neighborhood on Sundays, and render a 



Church Officers. Ill 

very valuable service to the church. Philip Embury, Captain 
Webb and Robert Strawbridge, three local preachers, 
founded Methodism in America, and their successors have 
planted it in the new States of the West. Throughout the 
entire range of the Methodist connection, the local preachers 
are still an effective and faithful body of ministerial laborers. 
From their ranks come the great army of the Itinerants. 
They usually begin as exhorters, graduate to the local minis- 
try, and thence into the Itinerancy. 

!N~o feature of Methodism shows more practical wisdom 
than this three-fold arrangement and graduation of her 
ministry. The exhorter must show improvement before he 
can become a local preacher, and the local must show 
capacity before he can reach the Itinerant ranks. 

Lay Officers of the Church. 

Exhorters, Class-Leaders, Steimrds, Trustees, Superintendents 
of Sunday Schools. 

I. Exhorters. 

An exhorter is one licensed by the Quarterly Conference 
to read Scriptural lessons and make a practical application 
of their truths to the public congregation. They are not 
expected to select a text and preach a regular sermon. Their 
service is confined to singing, prayer, and public exhortation. 
They are useful laborers in our church. Mr. Wesley per- 
mitted none of his members to exercise even the function of 
an exhorter without license, and so it is engrafted in our 
economy, that license to exhort must be given and annually 
renewed by the Quarterly Conference, to which body the 
exhorters are responsible for their official conduct. 

II. Class-Leaders 

Are appointed by the preacher in charge. In 1771, 



112 The Methodist Armor. 

Mr. Wesley said : "That it may be more easily discerned 
whether the members of our societies are working out their 
salvation, they are divided into little companies called classes. 
A leader is appointed whose duty it is : 1. To see each per- 
son in his class once a week, to inquire how their souls are 
prospering, to advise, reprove, comfort or exhort them. 2. 
To report to the pastor any that are sick or walking 
disorderly." 

III. Stewards. 

Stewards are elected by the Quarterly Conference. 
Their business is : 1. To attend to the financial interest of 
the charge. 2. To advise and confer with the pastor as to 
the general management of the work. 

Their duties are many and weighty. First, the question 
of a liberal and generous salary for the pastor depends upon 
them. Second, whether the salary allowed shall be paid 
depends almost exclusively on their efforts in collecting the 
money. No other persons are authorized to collect the 
estimated amount. If they fail, the failure is remediless. 
Faithfulness in this office is of the highest importance to the 
welfare of the ministry, and the prosperity of the church. 

IV. Trustees. 

All church property — such as meeting houses, parson- 
ages, cemeteries — held according to the Discipline, is vested 
in a board of Trustees, who hold it in trust for the use of the 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The 
ministers have never claimed, nor do they hold in law, any 
title to such property. Churches, thus held, are obliged to 
be opened to ministers duly sent by Conference. These 
churches arc held for the sacred purpose of Divine Worship, 
and are to be closed against all political or secular meetings. 



Peculiar Usages of Methodism. 113 

The Trustees are elected by the Quarterly Conferences, and 
are responsible to the same. 

V. Superintendents of Sunday Schools. 

The Quarterly Conference elects Superintendents of 
Sunday Schools on the nomination of the preacher in charge. 
The office of the Superintendent is one of vast importance to 
the future prosperity of the church, and therefore, great care 
should be taken to put in men of the greatest efficiency. 



CHAPTER XII. 
PECULIAR USAGES OF METHODISM. 

I. Class Meetings. 

In order to raise money to pay a church debt, Mr. 
"Wesley divided his people into classes of twelve, requiring 
"every member to give a penny a week." These classes 
meeting weekly to contribute their pennies became also 
meetings of religious experience. Thus, what was at first 
business meetings finally developed into class-meetings, which 
have become one of the peculiar institutions of Methodism. 

These meetings have been of vast benefit to build up the 
spiritual manhood of Methodism. But for many years, they 
have been in a state of deep declension. The signs of 
restoration are beginning to appear in various parts of our 
Zion. It will be a happy clay for Methodism when they are 
restored to their primitive prevalence and vigor. There are 
sundry passages in the Bible on which the institution of the 
class meeting may rest as a scriptural basis. 

While we do not find class meetings in the Bible in the 
same form that Methodists hold them, still they are sub- 
stantially recognized in the Word of Inspiration. David (in 
Psalm 5G: 10-20) says: "Come and hear, all ye that fear 



111 Tut, Methodist Armor. 

God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul/' 

1. Here we see that the godly man is anxious to impart 
to others his experience. "Come andhear." This experience 
is related to congenial hearers. "All ye that fear the Lord." 
These were the spiritual brethren of the Psalmist. Spiritual 
men only comprehend the experience of a godly man, and 
are therefore greatly benefitted by it. They are confirmed 
and refreshed in their own experience. No man ever related 
a good experience that did not benefit others. It falls as 
dew upon the grass. It often disperses the clouds of doubts 
as the sun clears the skies of clouds. Paul often told the 
experience of his conversion to the edification of thousands. 
Wesley's experience where he states : "I felt my heart 
strangely warrned" has been a lamp to the feet of thousands. 
The experience then of godly men is one of the most power- 
ful elements in Christianity. Now, class meetings afford a 
constant opportanity for the wielding of this power. 

2. Again : The man who relates his experience is per- 
haps more benefitted than the hearers. It makes religion 
intensely a personal matter. "Come, hear what he hath done 
for my soul" In this matter we talk about ourselves without 
egotism. It puts a man to thinking about the dealings of 
God with his soul. It leads a man to obey the apostolic in- 
junction. "Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith.'" 
Self-examination is very important. The lack of it swamped 
the foolish builder spoken ot in the sermon of Christ. It 
shut the door against the foolish virgins. These meetings 
are then especially valuable in leading persons to frequent, 
personal examinations. 

3. The class meeting promotes the spirit of fraternal 
sympathy. The communion of saints. "I believe in the 
communion of saints." It is a spiritual feast. It is a fore- 
taste of heaven. The fragrance of the blooming garden is 



Peculiar Usages of Methodism. 115 

not so sweet and refreshing. It is more genial than the 
beaming of a warm snn after a season of cold, cloudy weather. 
"Behold, how pleasant it is for brethren to dv^ell together 
in unity." 

4. Class meetings accomplish great good in leading men 
to a confession of their faults. There is nothing here like the 
Romanish Confessional. The confession is voluntary, not 
enforced. Voluntary confession is good for the health of 
the soul. So James thought : "Confess your faults one to an- 
other, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed." 
It leads a man to abandon his faults — it enlists the prayers 
of his brethren ; and thus has healing and curing effects. 
When the prodigal son confessed — "I have sinned" — he 
arose and came to his father. 

5. Class meetings are eminently pleasing to God. "Then 
they that feared the Lord spake often one to another ; and 
the Lord hearkened and heard it : and a book of remem- 
brance was written before Him for them that feared the 
Lord, and thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, 
srith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my 
jewels." The eloquent speeches of legislative halls and 
kingly parliaments may be written down by ten thousand 
editors of political journals, but they are not written in the 
Book of God, but the class meeting talks of God's people are. 
God thinks so much of these meetings as to have angel re- 
porters there to take down every word, and have it put in 
the celestial journals. 

7. These meetings serve to kindle religious feelings. In 
such a meeting the heart is drawn out in sympathy, prayer, 
and desire, and thus a warmer, purer flame is kindled. A 
fresher love toward God and man is aroused. When Christ 
held a kind of class meeting with the disciples on their way 
to Emmaus, they said one to another, "Did not our hearts 



116 The Methodist Armor. 

burn within us, while he talked with us by the way." These 
disciples were in the gloom of spiritual Winter, but their 
feelings soon began to kindle, burn, and flame as Christ 
talked with them. Their clouds were gone, the Winter was 
over, the life of Spring began to bud and blossom — balmy 
air, clear skies, and the warm Sun of Righteousness were 
now pouring a tide of gladness into their souls. How many 
have gone to these meetings with the darkness of spiritual 
Winter upon them and have come out with the brightness 
and beauty of Spring all around them. 

II. The Itinerancy. 

A marked peculiarity of Methodism is the Itinerancy of 
her ministry. It is a simple and easy plan of shifting the 
ministers from one field of labor to another. It requires 
three things : 

1. That the congregations give up their right to choose 
their pastors. 

2. That the ministers surrender their right to select 
their own field of labor. 

3. That the appointment be referred to a competent, 
impartial, untrammeled, but responsible authority arranged 
by the law of the church. 

Both the people and ministers, however, are at liberty 
to make known their peculiar condition, wishes, and cir- 
cumstances to the appointing power. And thus under this 
elastic system, all parties have their own choice, when it is 
clear that the good of the work will be served. While the 
Bishops have the sole authority of making the appointments, 
yet they always do so under the advice of the Presiding 
Elders. They are eyes and ears for the Bishop, and mouth 
for the people and the preachers. Having traveled through 
all the work and being intimately acquainted with the wants 



Peculiar Usages of Methodism. 117 

of the people and the peculiar qualifications of the preachers, 

they rarely fail in so advising the appointing power as to 
secure the best disposition to be made of the ministers. A 
minister under this system is liable to be moved after one 
year's service, yet he may remain four years, if all the parties 
concerned think it best, but beyond this term he cannot go. 
The theory of the Methodist Itinerancy is based upon 
the fact that "the World is the parish" of Methodism — that 
all men everywhere must be called to repentance. It is 
based upon the Great commission, "Go ye into all the "World 
and preach the Gospel to every creature." "Go ye," not 
wait until the people come to you. In the settled ministry, 
the people call the preacher, in the itinerant system, the 
minister seeks the lost sheep. Jesus Christ himself was an 
itinerating preacher. His circuit embraced Judea, Samaria, 
and Galilee. The apostles were commanded "to go to the 
lost sheep of the house of Israel." The "seventy" were sent 
forth two and two "into qyqyy city and place." "Paul said 
unto Barnabas, Let us go again, and visit our brethren in 
crcrij city where we have preached the Word of the Lord." 
Philip traveled the new circuit Samaria, which embraced 
"Cesaria," "Gaza/' "Azatus," and all the cities on toward 
Cesaria. And on the first round, he had a great revival at 
Samaria, and was instrumental in the conversion of the 
"Ethiopian eunuch"' in the South part of his circuit. 

Peculiar Advantages of the System. 

1. It keeps all the churches constantly supplied with 
pastors. The weak and poor churches are as regularly sup- 
plied as rich ones. Though such churches be out of the way, 
and able to pay but little yet they always have a pastor. 
Consequently, we never have what is so frequently found in 
other denominations, viz : vacant churches. 



118 The Methodist Armor. 

2. No effective preacher in this system is ever found 
without a pastoral charge. We have no unemployed minis- 
ters waiting year after year for some congregation to call 
them. The ministerial waste of time in other denominations 
in this respect is enormous. We noticed in a paper not long 
since that some eight hundred ministers in the Presbyterian 
church, in the United States, were without any regular 
pastorates. 

3. It furnishes our people with great variety of ministerial 
talent. One year, they have a logician to defend the 
doctrines of the church. Next, they have a son of thunder 
to awake and arouse the sleepers. This year a revivalist to 
get the people converted, the next, an experienced discipli- 
narian to train them. 

4. It readjusts annually the whole machinery of pastoral 
relations, so as to secure the greatest efficiency possible. 

5. It takes out and puts into pastoral charge, ministers 
without that violence and strife, which attends the dissolution 
of pastoral relations in the other denominations. 

6. Finally, it is well known that the changes in the 
settled ministry, on an average, are quite as frequent as among 
the Methodists, but without the harmony and efficiency of 
the itinerant system. We believe the plan to be Providential. 
It has worked wonders. And we expect to adhere to it until 
the trump of judgment sounds. 

III. Love-Feast. 

The design of the Love-Feast is to cultivate and exercise 
fraternal love and good fellowship. It is done by eating and 
drinking the simple elements of bread and water as a beauti- 
ful evidence of the same, and to speak together of religious 
experience for the purpose of strengthening each other's 
faith and magnifying the goodness of the Lord. The Feasts 



Ministerial Support. 119 

of charity were held by the primitive church very much as 
Moravians and Methodists now hold them. Dr. Meander in 
his life of Christ, says : a At the agapse, or Love-Feasts, all 
distinctions of earthly condition and rank were to disappear 
in Christ." Tertullian says : "Our supper shows its charac- 
ter by its name ; it bears the Greek name of love." The 
following Scriptures allude to it : "And they continued 
steadfastly in the breaking of bread, and in prayers." Acts 2 : 
42. "Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples 
came together to break bread," etc. Acts 20 : 7. "These 
are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you." 
Jude 12. The Love-feast in the apostolic church proceeded 
immediately the communion of the Lord's Supper. The 
Discipline says : "Love-Feasts shall be held, quarterly, or at 
such other times as the preacher may consider expedient." 
They are to be held by partaking of a "a little bread and 
water in token of brotherly love." 



CHAPTER XIII. 
MINISTERIAL SUPPORT. 

■ The Grounds of Ministerial Support. 

It is certain that God would not, and most assuredly did 
not establish his church on earth without making ample 
provisions for its support and perpetuation . In the beginning, 
God instituted a system of Tithes for the express purpose of 
maintaining Divine Worship. The gold and silver of earth 
were stored away to do this. "The earth is the Lord's, and 
the fullness thereof." Churches cannot be built without 
money. Missionary operations cannot be carried on without 
money. The question of the world's conversion is largely 
one of money. The efficiency of the ministry is largely 
dependent upon a competent support. 



120 The Methodist Armor. 

I. The Divine Law on the Support of the Ministry. 

If we return to this law as recorded by Moses, we shall 
find it to he specific, definite and Divinely authoritative. 
Here it is : "And all the tithes of the land, whether of the 
seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's : it 
is holy unto the Lord. And concerning the tithes of the 
herd, or of the flock, the tenth shall he holy unto the Lord." 
Lev. xxvii : 30-33. 

This one-tenth of the annual increase is that which was re- 
quired from the beginning as the least that would meet the require- 
ments of God's law. This was emphatically the Lord's tenth, 
and by Him was av1io11} t applied to the support of His minis- 
tering servants in the Temple. To withhold it was to steal 
God's property. "Will a man rob God ? Yet ye have robbed 
me. But ye say wherein have Ave robbed thee ? In tithes 
ami offerings." What follows ? "Ye are cursed with a curse 
for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation." 

This law was not repealed by the Gospel dispensation, but 
fully endorsed by Xew Testament writers. Paid says : "Do 
ye not know that they who minister about holy tilings live 
of the things of the temple ? and they which wait at the altar 
are partakers with the altar. Even so hath the Lord, 'ordained 
that they who preach the Gospel should lire of the Gospel" 
1 Cor. 19: 13, 14. 

Thus we sec that the law of the tithe is fully endorsed 
by the apostle. Jesus sanctioned the great liberality of 
Zacchus when he gave "half his goods," commended the 
example of the poor widow who gave "all her living," and 
said concerning the law that lie "came not to destroy but to 
fulfill." The church is the same through all ages, and the 
law to support her ministers must be the same. 

"The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; the 
world and they that dwell therein." The ^av:}\ is God's 



Ministerial Support. 121 

great plantation, and man is His tenant, and nothing can be 
more reasonable than that He should require a tenth to sup- 
post His ministers. This is His rental money. 

tL Xow this truth is a simple and even a self-evident one. 
God has made me, and I and all my powers belong to the 
Maker. He has made the earth and stored it with all its 
wealth ; he has created the natural forces and laws which 
arc used in the creation of wealth, and he has put all these 
at my service. My labor is his because I am his handiwork, 
because I am dependent upon him for my existence, because, 
therefore, my supreme allegiance is due to him ; and all that 
by means of my labor I get out of the earth is his, because I 
am merely taking from the treasure-house that which he 
previously put there. All the wealth which is dug out of 
the earth in coal and silver and gold, or which is gathered 
from its surtace in wheat and corn and various cereals and 
fruits, or which is indirectly produced by changes of form, 
structure and location by the power of steam, or by water 
power, or by the wafting winds of commerce, is gathered 
from stores which he has accumulated and made valuable by 
means of powers with which he has endowed us. To take 
these stores and employ these powers for our own uses and 
purposes is just as truly an act of dishonest defalcation as for 
the clerk to take money from his employer's till for his own 
pocket." 

II. The Immense Benefits arising from the Diffusion of 

the Gospel. 

The Gospel is worth immensely more in its temporal 
benefits than the money paid in building churches and sup- 
porting ministers. Let us look at this point. 

1. The Gospel indirectly increases property — It inspires in- 
dustry, sharpens the intellect, forbids prodigality, all of which 



122 The Methodist Armor. 

tend to the accumulation of property. Educated mind finds 
the hidden gold, silver, coal, oil, and utilizes the resources of 
nature ; which lie neglect by a savage people. On this con- 
tinent, where Indians lived for ages in a state of abject 
poverty, christian people have made princely fortunes. The 
richest nations on earth are christian nations. Wherever a 
christian church is built, it adds value to the property sur- 
rounding it. 

2. The Gospel gives security to life, jjropcrty and liberty. — 
The sense of sacred regard for the rights of others has been 
developed by the preaching of the Gospel and organized into 
laws of protection. The blood of the Cross has made man 
and his rights sacred. In ancient Rome, human life was 
trampled upon as dust. "Prisoners taken in battle were 
bought up by traders, who followed the victorious army, 
and sold as cattle. These prisoners were often highly edu- 
cated men — Greeks, Gauls, Thracians, Spaniards. The 
Roman emperors sported with human life. Craseus crucified 
ten thousand prisoners at one time. Trojan made ten thousand 
fight in the amphitheatre for the amusement of the people 
and prolonged the bloody feast for four months." 

3. The intellectual benefits of the Gospel. — The common 
Schools for the education of the masses were unknown till 
the introduction of the Gospel. "The earliest endeavors to 
educate all the people originated in the Christian Church." — 
Johnson's Cyclopedia. In Greece and Rome, education was 
confined to the few sons of the noble and the rich. In the 
wake of the Gospel, schools for the education of the common 
people have sprung up. Another fact is equally clear, 
namely, the ministers of the Gospel have been the leaders in 
founding educational institutions. They first established 
them in Europe. The oldest College in Amer'ca — Harvard 
— was founded by John Harvard, a minister. He gave $3,500 



Ministerial Support. 123 

to start it. Yale College was founded by eleven ministers. 
And it is well know that the colleges in North Carolina, owe 
their existence and prosperity to ministers. Of the three 
hundred colleges in the United States, two hundred and 
seventy were founded by the christian churches — only thirty 
by State authority. 

The healthiest and most luminous literature of the world 
fe the fruit of the Gospel. It is a noted fact that Columbus, 
who discovered America ; Galileo, who discovered the 
Satellites of Jupiter ; Newton, who discovered the law of 
gravitation ; and other famous discoverers and inventors, 
were all born and educated in countries enlightened by the 
Gospel. The pulpit itself is a great iiojruJar educator. It 
presents the grandest and most stirring truths to arouse the 
popular mind to a sense of right and truth. Christ said to 
his apostles, "Ye are the light of the world." Through the 
press, Sunday Schools, books, and the pulpit, the ministers 
of the Gospel are as so many moons catching the light from 
"the Sun of righteousness" and reflecting it upon the people. 

4. The Benefits of Christian Civilization. — Look at the 
worth of the Gospel in building up the comforts and con- 
veniences of christian civilization. Pagan governments were 
made for the benefit of the rulers while the governed millions 
lay under the iron heel of despots. The king was the God, 
while the people were sheep fleeced by him — a cluster of 
grapes crushed to fill his cup of royal gratification. Think 
of Nebuchadnezzar casting the Hebrew children into a fiery 
furnance because they would not obey his whim to worship 
a, golden image. Of Herod slaughtering "all the children 
that were in Bethlehem." Of a petty prince slaying a man 
to warm his feet in his blood. What a change has come 
over the world. The government now is from the people 
and for the benefit of the people. 



124 The Methodist Armor. 

Before the Gospel came, children were supposed to have 
no rights. The polished Greeks murdered deformed infants. 
The Carthagenians sacrifice! theirs to Molock. Spartan laws 
eompelled parents to cast their sickly children away into deep 
pits. Roman law allowed parents to murder their children 
with impunity. China for ages has legalized the assassina- 
tion of one-third of her infant population. In East India, 
mothers cast their infants into the river Ganges to feed the' 
Crocodiles. But Christ says : "Suffer the little children to 
come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the king- 
dom of God." Behold the Sunday Schools organized for 
their instruction. See how parents work for them. What 
tenderness is exercised towards those, that are deformed, 
sickly, blind, or otherwise unfortunate. What a change the 
Gospel has wrought. 

In heathen lands, when parents grew old, blind, and 
helpless, their children carry them away into the woods and 
kill them. Behold how differently the old, the blind, the 
poor, the insane, are treated" in christian countries. We 
build costly asylums for their comfort. Look at your com- 
forts in this christian land as compared with ancient times. 

"When Christ came there was not a palace in Palestine 
which possessed the comforts which have become necessaries 
in Christendom to-day. There was not probably a glass 
window, certainly not a chimney ; books, none ; lights to 
read them by at night, none. There were few roads ; almost 
no carnages ; no banks; no postal conveniences. There was 
not honesty enough in the world to make either banking or 
post-offices possible. If Cicero wished to send a letter from 
Borne to Athens he must find a friend or hire a special 
messenger. Even so late as the present century the Shah of 
Persia endeavored in vain to establish a postal system in his 
empire, and could not for want of integrity in his people. 



Ministerial Support. 125 

To-day there are neither banks, railroads, telegraphs nor 
post-offices except in Christendom or where Christians have 
carried them. Taxation robbed the industrious of all their 
earnings, leaving them not always enough even to live upon. 
Famines were common. Money was hid in the ground or 
concentrated in garments, jewelry and precious stones ; no 
other investments were possible. Poverty in Rome was so 
wide-spread that the people were saved from starvation only 
by the building of great granaries by the government and 
the distribution of corn at a merely nominal price. The 
pagan religion did so little for the common people that in 
Rome they were excluded from public worship and denied 
the use of the omens. Herds of beggars, armies of tramps, 
mobs that finally made wreck of Rome herself, were every- 
where. And wealth and culture had no pity, only contempt 
for them. "Repel a poor man with scorn," "Fling your alms 
to a beggar, but avoid all contact with him," were Roman 
maxims to be found in such authors as Quintillian and Seneca. 
To such a world the proclamation, "One is your Father in 
heaven, and all ye are brethren," was indeed glad tidings to 
the poor. The post-office, the bank, the home are all Chris- 
tian institutions. The} T are Christ's gifts to man." 

5. Spiritual benefits of the Ministry. — In whatever country 
Christianity has been established, it has been done through 
the labors and sufferings of the preachers. At first, the 
Disciples of Christ numbered but twelve. Then a hundred 
and twenty. Then three thousand were added. Thus we 
see that Christianity was once but a mustard seed. But it 
has grown to be a great tree, overshadowing much of the 
world. Under the healing influence of this tree of life, now 
whole nations repose in peace. Planted in our country, its 
fruitful boughs extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific Sea, 
from the frozen re o'ions of the North to the everbloomino- 



126 The Methodist Armor. 

flowers of the South. But let us remember that it was 
planted by the hands of the preachers — it was watered by 
their tears and fertilized by their blood. That great army 
of christians — numbering its hundreds of millions — that are 
the salt of the earth and light of the world, marching on their 
way to heaven to-day, were converted by the instrumentality 
of the ministers. 

III. The Cheapness of Preaching. 

Sometimes the people complain that the preachers re- 
quire too much money. Now we assert that there is no class 
of men of the same ability and culture, who work so cheaply 
as preachers. 

1. We think the ministers are equal in ability and 
mental culture to any other class of men. Yet while lawyers, 
doctors, and good business men average about $2,000 a year, 
the salary of preachers will not average more than $500 a 
year. The amount paid to the lawyers of this country is put 
down at $35,000,000 ; that paid to the ministers at $7,000,- 
000— a difference of $28,000,000. 

2. Then compare the expenses of the ministry with the 
injurious luxuries of the people, and what a difference. 
Thousands are paid for liquor, useless jewelry and gaudy 
raiment. For every dollar this nation spends for the minis- 
try, it spends $76 for intoxicating liquors. North Carolina 
spends $12 for liquor where one is given for the Gospel. 

3. It is a sad fact that heathen spend more in keeping 
up their forms of idolatry than christians do in support- 
ing their preachers. The annual cost of a heathen temple 
in India is set down at $450,000 — a little more perhaps than 
is paid to all the ministers in North Carolina. The annual 
expenses of keeping one idol in Khundoba is put down at 
$30,000. Dr. Duff says, that one pagan festival cost 
$2,000,000. 



Ministerial Support. 127 

4. It is stated on good authority that the dogs cost this 
nation more than the preachers. It is estimated that the 
dogs costs the country $16,000,000, while preachers cost only 
$7,000,000. Let us hear no more nonsense about the high 
cost of preaching, since it is demonstrated that there is noth- 
ing in all this land so cheap as the ministry when we con- 
sider their talents and the benefits of their preaching. 

IY. The Ability of the People to Pay. 

That the professed followers of Christ in our da} T and 
country, possess a large share of this world's riches is plain 
to the most casual observer. They own broad acres of fertile 
land on which the great staples of cotton, corn, wheat, to- 
bacco, and fruits are grown under the warmth of God's Sun 
and the showers of His rain. Others are ensued in the 
profitable businesses of merchandizing, mining, manufactur- 
ing, banking, and other spheres of trade. There are engineers, 
architects, lawyers, physicians, authors, school teachers, edi- 
tors, belonging to the Church of Christ. Most of the im- 
mense wealth of this country is in the hands of 'professed 
christians. The wealth of this land is not held by infidels. 
Why then does the cause of the Lord languish for the want 
of money ? Why, then do chiwch interests languish for the want 
of money f We call attention to the following reasons : 

1. It cannot be denied that the love of money is too 
prevalent among the professors of religion. There is a 
grasping spirit, that will not let money go to pay the expenses 
of the Gospel. Covetousness is the plague-spot of the church. 
It is a consuming cancer — eating up the spirit of liberality. 
A fatal Upas-tree blighting all that is green around it. It is 
the opium that makes the church sleep and snore over the 
plain duty of giving liberally to the cause of the Lord. And 
this covetousness, this inordinate love of money, the apostle 






128 The Methodist Armor. 

boldly defines to be idolatry. This golden calf worshipped 
in so many families, keeps the car of the Gospel from rolling 
around the earth to spread the gladness of salvation to earth's 
remotest bounds. O, that! this money-loving spirit were 
rooted out of the church. 

2. Another reason why so many churches fail to get the 
amount needed is due to the fact that they do not reach the 
masses. Drops though small in themselves, when combined, 
make the mighty rivers, and flowing oceans, and oceans 
water the world. When even pennies are collected from the 
million, they constitute vast sums of money. Governments 
have millions of dollars in their Treasuries, because they so 
levy taxes and revenues as to reach all classes. The great 
secret of the Roman Catholic church having such vast 
pecuniary resources lies in the fact of collecting pennies from 
the million masses. The pecuniary resources of English 
Methodism are far in advance of American Methodism be- 
cause their system reaches all the poor classes. 

3. Another cause of failure is found in the use of bad plans. 
The worst of all plans is : 

(1) The Annual Payment Plan. — "While this plan is the 
worst, it is the most prevalent in our church. It has many 
bad features about it. Such as forcing the preacher to con- 
tract large debts to procure the necessaries of life. It seems 
much heavier to the members to pay $20 at the close of the 
year than to have paid in four or twelve installments. The 
preacher loses a great deal by the collection being put off 
until the last of the year. Many who could have, and would 
have paid, if applied to in the early part of the year, have 
moved away, died, become unable, or can't he seen when 
the preacher is leaving. 

This plan is a failure as seen in the amount it secures. 
It allows .a present and pressing duty to be. put off to the 



Ministerial Support. 129 

remote future. It gives time and space to the growth of 
selfishness and eovetousness. Constant giving tends to abate 
the force of avarice, but these annual payments nourish the 
besetting sin of eovetousness, which is idolatry. 

(2) The Quarterly Payment Plan. — The quarterly pay- 
ment plan is a great improvement on the annual. Assess every 
member of your church something and be sure to collect 
one-fourth of it quarterly, and it will revolutionize our church 
finances. We have remarked before that one of the most 
potent causes of failure lies in the fact that our system does 
not reach the entire membership — it leaves out a large num- 
ber who contribute nothing. 

To illustrate : South Fork Circuit has 632 members, and 
paid last year to the Pastor and Presiding Elder $509. Let 
us suppose that three hundred of these members should agree 
to pay quarterly each 25 cents, that would make for the 

year $300 

Two hundred to pay quarterly each 30 cents . . 240 
One hundred to pay quarterly each 50 cents . . '200 

Twenty to pay quarterly each $1 80 

Twelve to pay quarterly each $2 96 

"Which would make a total of $916, and a difference of 
$407 more than was paid by the sama people worked under 
the old plan of annual payments. 

rJow observe that in the calculation it is the many small 
sums which swell the amount. Second, that it is perfectly 
easy for nine-tenths of the poorest classes to raise and pay in 
25 cents during the space of three months ; which would be 
but 2 cents a week. 

(3) The Monthly payment plan. — The working of this plan 
is simple and successful. To illustrate : We will take 
Double Shoals Circuit. It has 700 members. It paid to the 





120 


ithly 


120 


a 


150 


u 


120 


u 


309 



130 The Methodist Armor. 

pastor and Presiding Elder less than $500 last year. Let us 
try it on another plan. 

5 persons give each $2 monthly 
10 " " " 1 
20 " " " 50 cents monthly 
50 " " " 25 " 
100 " " " 10 " 
515 " " " 5 " 

700 members. $939 

This amount is nearly double what that circuit is in the 
habit of giving, and no doubt but it will startle the members 
when they read it, and yet by assessing all the members accor- 
ding to this plan and collecting monthly it would be certainly 
realized. 

(4) The weekly payment plan. — The plan of paying week- 
ly has many excellent features. This plan has been crowned 
with more signal success than any other. It secures the 
largest amount of money, and is less burdensome upon indi- 
viduals. This system secures the small gifts of the congre- 
gation and swells them into one large volume. It is much 
easier to pay twenty-five cents a week than thirteen dollars 
once a year. It is easier to pay a dollar every week than 
fifty at one time. It is simply astonishing to observe how 
fast little sums paid weekly amount to great ones. A cer- 
tain pastor says : "How much do you think the contributions 
of five cents a week amounted to in my church last year ? 
Fifty-eight persons gave five cents a week, and the sum total 
was $153.70. Fifty persons gave ten cents each every week, 
and the sum total of their offerings was $265 — two hundred 
and sixty -five dollars in ten cent pieces. Thirty -three per- 
sons gave twenty-five cents each week, and it amounted to 
$437.25, anel the entire amount given in sums ranging from 



Ministerial Support. 131 

one cent to twenty-five cents was §1,119.84. Thirty-two 
persons gave fifty cents each week, and their total was $848. 
Fourteen persons gave one dollar each week, and together 
contributed $742, while the whole amount in sums of from 
one cent to one dollar a week was $3,094.14, and was given 
by 262 members." 

Here is the weighty argument in favor of constant and 
frequent paying. The serious blunder in the old method is 
that the few give and not the many. The second great blun- 
der is the wide-stretching space between the times of giving. 
The two points in the pecuniary reformation are very plain — 
frequency as to time, and universality as to the payers. Let every 
body pay, and pay quarterly, monthly, or weekly. All at it 
and always at it will generate pecuniary steam enough to 
shoot the Gospel car around the world in a few years. "The 
successful plan then is the one, that secures the small gifts from 
many givers, at regular and frequent intervals." 

Y. The Amount to be Given. 

The grand cause of failure is that payers pay too little. 
It is a sad fact that men do not give enough, who are in the 
habit of ffiviiiff. Hardly one man in a hundred does his 
whole duty as to the amount he ouo-ht to s:ive. 

1st. — How T much should a christian give ? 

Ans. — One-tenth of his income. 

2nd. — Does the Bible require the payment of one-tenth 
to the Lord? 

Ans. — Yes. Abraham paid tithes. Gen. 14 : 20. Jacob 
promised to God one-tenth of his income, and kept his prom- 
ise. Gen. 28 : 22. The language of the fourth command- 
ment — "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy 
God" is no more emphatic than the law of the Tithes — "All 
the tithes of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of 



132 The Methodist Ahmor. 

the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's : it is holy unto the Lord." 
Holy means devoted or consecrated unto the Lord. Lev. 27 : 
03. In Numbers 18 : 21, lie says : "I have given the children 
of Levi (the priests) all the tenth in Isreal for an inheritance. " 
This one-tenth of the increase is that which was required 
from the beginning as the least that would meet the require- 
ment of God's law. This is still emphatically the Lord's 
tjnth, and by him it was wholly assigned to the support of 
his servants. 

3rd. — Was not a portion of the Jewish tithes applied as 
taxes to the support of the State as well as the support of the 
priests ? 

Ans. — No. God appropriated the tithes to the support 
of the Levites — the priests. The government was supported 
by presents, by the products of the royal flock, by vineyards, 
by the spoils of conquered nations and of merchants passing 
through the country, by taxes and tolls. The treasuries of the 
Lord's house and the king's were distinct. 

"4th. — Was the law of tithes perpetual in Hebrew his- 
tory ? Was it always binding ? 

Ans. — Abraham paid tithes, so did Jacob ; so it is fair 
to presume did all the patriarchs. More than a thousand 
years after the death of Moses, God through Malachi de- 
nounced the Jews for not paying their tithes. They were 
uniformly prosperous when they paid them, and adversity 
was certain when they did not, 

5th. — Were not the blessings promised for payment of 
tithes spiritual rather than temporal? 

Ans. — Both temporal and spiritual. God united them, 
why should w 7 e separate them ? Read the the third chapter 
(,f Malichi; perhaps the strongest in the Bible on that sub- 
ject. The promises there have almost sole reference to tem- 
per;. 1 blessings. 



Ministerial Support. .133 

6th. — Did our Savior sanction the payment of tithes ? 

Ans.— Yes. Read Matt. 23: 23, and Luke 11: 42. 

7th. — But did he command that tithes be paid ? 

Axs. — Xot directly that we know of, hut he recognized 
the law, commended it, and did not abrogate it. 

He did not command the keeping of the Sabbath, but 
neither did he abrogate the law, and we all regard it as bind- 
ing. There was no need to command the Jews either to 
keejD the Sabbath or observe the law of tithes. They did 
both so scrupulously, and in such detail, that while our 
Savior commended the observance ot both laws, he reproved 
them for sacrificing the spirit for the form. 

8th.- — I cannot afford to give one-tenth of my income. 

Axs — How do you know ? Did you ever try it ? Ever 
know any one who had practiced it that was not thereby 
prospered ? Xo matter how rich ; no matter how poor ; no 
matter how small the income ; no matter how large the 
family. Do you think your Heavenly Father will make an 
exception in your case and not keep his promise 'with you? 
Can you afford not to do it ? To which of two men would 
you radier lend money without security : one who observed 
this rule, or one who did not, both being equally honest, 
equally worthy, and possessed of equal advantages and 
abilities ? 

9th. — Why not practice the Xew Testament rule ? — 
"Give as God has prospered you." 

Axs. — Certainly, that is an Old Testament rule also. 
But how much ? what proportion ? One -twentieth ; one-fifth ; 
one-tenth, or just as you happen to feel at the time? One- 
tenth of the prosperity was God's rule then ; when was it 
changed, and what is the Xew Testament proportion ? 

10th. — Suppose I should resolve to be, and should be, 



134 The Methodist Armor. 

liberal in my gifts, may I not count upon equal temporal and 
spiritual blessings as if I gave proportionately ? 

Ans. — 'No. God's estimate of liberality may differ from 
yours. To which of two men would you rent land or lend 
money ; one promising, "I will be liberal as I can afford in 
the matter of payment of rent or interest ; I will from time 
to time pay what I think is right but I intend to be liberal.'" 
The other, "I will do the best I can with what you intrust 
to my care, and I will pay you a definite proportion of the 
income." Which would you honor most? Which would 
most honor you ? Which would serve you and your interests 
best? To your possible objection that there is too much of 
a business air about this illustration, the reply is, that there 
is a wonderful amount of business in God's dealings with us. 
The Bible contains very many of the finest and truest busi- 
ness maxims ever written and God's promises apply both to 
our temporal and spiritual interests. 

11th. — Should a young man just commencing to make 
his own living, or poor man with a family to support, set 
apart one-tenth of the income? 

Ans. — Yes, and because the remaining nine-tenths will 
have God's promised richer blessing and go further. Sup- 
pose you were asked a parallel question : "Do you think a 
poor man can afford to spend every seventh day resting, 
doing nothing ; wasting it so far as income is concerned?" 
Your answer would be — and you would be right — that no 
matter what his circumstances, he would be poorer in dollars 
and cents if he worked than if he rested on the Sabbath. 
Remember we are dealing in facts, not theories, and the facts 
are all on one side, both as regards the spending for our own 
use the seventh of time and tenth of income. 

12th. — A farmer asks: TTow shall I arrive at one-tenth 
of mv income ? 



Ministerial Support. 135 

Ans. — The common way with most persons is to set 
apart, harvest, market and keep separate the proceeds of 
every tenth acre or part of an acre. This is the "One tenth 
fund" from which you will draw and pay out as you deem 
best. 

Another, and to many an easier way is to put into this 
fund one-tenth of the proceeds of every article sold from the 
farm. When this plan is adopted a yearly estimate should 
be made of the value of the products of the farm consumed 
by the family, and this also should he tithed. 

13th. — A minister asks : "Shall I tithe my income ?" 

Ans. — Yes ; upon precisely the same principle that 
others do. 

14th. — "Suppose my people do not pay me what they 
agree ?" 

Ans. — Tithe what you receive. 

15th. — A physician asks : "Shall I deduct from the tenth 
the value of services I gratutiously render to the poor?" 

Ans. — No. It is in the line of your profession ; a part 
of your business losses or business expenses, and probably pays 
you better than any form of advertising known to business 
men. 

16th. — "When should I commence ?" 

Ans. — Now. Or if you desire you can make an estimate 
of your income back to any given time, and also what you 
have given for the same time. Keep a correct account to the 
end of the year, then close the account and carry forward any 
ballance. 

17th. — Suppose I am in debt, should my debts be paid 
first ? 

Ans. — No. Your debt to God is paramount. It is one- 
tenth of your weekly, monthly or yearly income. Pay that, 



13(3 The Methodist Armor. 

as it accrues, an 1 his promised blessing will enable you the 
more easily and rapidly to pay what you owe to others. 

18th.— Should I tithe my capital? 

Ans. — No. Your capital, whether brains, or hands, or 
money, or property in any form, is that out of which you 
make your income. Pay the tenth of your income, or as the 
Bible has it, of the "increase." 

19th. — "How shall I keep the account ?" 

Ans. — Use a memorandum book, or a page of any blank 
book, putting down every item you give. Add up and look 
over the account frequently in order to keep the matter veil 
in mind. 

Another, and often a better way is to have a "one tenth 
box" and be scrupulously exact in putting into it One-tenth 
of the income when it is received. This will be the Lord's 
Treasury from which you will draw to give to worthy objects 
as your judgment may dictate." 

The Prosperity of Liberal Payers. 

"What evidence is there outside of the Bible that all 
who observe this law will be prospered in temporal interests 
to a greater degree than if they did not? 

Axs. — 1st. The accumulated testimony through all ages 
of those who have tried it, is that it is true. 

2nd. Within the last four years a circular has been sent 
to more than 15,000 evangelical ministers in the United 
States in which occurs the following statement and question : 

"My belief is that God blesses in temporal as well as in 
spiritual things the man who honors him by setting apart a 
slated portion of his income to his service. I have never 
known an exception. Have you?" 

A little pamphlet containing the same question has been 
carefully distributed anions more than 500,000 laymen, ask- 



Ministerial Support. 137 

ing if they knew of any exceptions to the rule. Hundreds, 
probably thousands of facts and experiences have been col- 
lected. A few are inserted. So far as is known there are 
no real exceptions. Do you know of any ? If so, will you 
tell your pastor, and ask him to give the circumstances ?" 

A large portion of the following testimonials were pub- 
lished first in 1879, and were selected within a short time, 
largely from replies to the circular which was then being 
sent to Methodist Ministers. Probably a greater proportion 
of similar replies were received from Presbyterian, Congre- 
gational and Episcopal ministers and a slightly less propor- 
tion from Baptist. Similar testimonials have been received 
almost every day for years. These are published only to 
emphasize and add stronger proof if possible to the advan- 
tages of paying back to God one-tenth of our income. 

From a Pastor in Neiv Jersey. — I commenced the prac- 
tice when in a condition of deep financial embarrassment, 
and the way brightens in that direction each step I take. 

From a Pastor in Mich. — My father lived that rule and 
prospered. I have for eight years since leaving the 'seminary, 
and have prospered; the wealthiest man in my church and 
community has lived by it. 

From a Pastor in Indiana. — One brother in my charge 
made a written contract that he would give to the Lord one- 
tenth of his annual income. He was poor then, he now 
gives hundreds of dollars annually. 

From a Pastor in West Virginia. — During a recent pas- 
torate in Baltimore City, I was struck with the fact that the 
only business man in my church not seriously affected by the 
hard times, was the solitary individual who gave proportion- 
ately. 

From a Pastor in Maine. — I have known some ministers 
who have done this for many years. Such have invariably 



138 The Methodist Armor. 

had prosperity. The Bible doctrine and practice is safe and 
true. 

From a Pastor in Pennsylvania. — Mr. told me that 

from the day of his conversion he commenced giving one- 
tenth to the cause of God, and during the following eleven 
years he gave more than he was worth when converted, and 
that God prospered him so that he was worth after the eleven 
years of giving ten times more than before. 

From a Pastor in Ohio. — One man in my congregation 
has practiced this course. He was at one time very prosper- 
ous ; then he almost failed in business, yet one-tenth of his 
gross income always found its way into benevolent enter- 
prises ; people were astonished at his tenacity and now he is 
better off than ever. His offerings are increasing from year 
to year. 

From a Pastor in Ohio.— I have an uncle who, until he 
decided to give systematically one-tenth of his income, was 
in straitened circumstances. For several years of late, giving 
as above, he has been greatly prospered, spiritually and 
especially financially. He is now quite independent. 

From a Pastor in Georgia. — An intelligent lady of my 
church, on the death of her husband adopted the rule, and 
not only has she been blessed personally, but her four 
daughters, and indeed all of her seven children seem to be 
the objects of divine favor. All are prospering temporally, 
and all save the little boy are consistent christians. 

F"om a Pastor in Pa.— I was in doubt for a long time 
that I ought to give largely to benevolence, Avhile I was in 
debt. I began to doubt, however, after a hard and unsuc- 
cessful struggle to get out of debt, that I should ever succeed. 
At length I was persuaded that I was "robbing God" to pay 
mv creditors. Mv wife and 1 consulted over the matter and 




Ministerial Support. 139 

decided to give a tenth, which we have done, and God is 
prospering us beyond any previous experience. 

From a Pastor in Northern New York.— In a former 
charge I had one member who erave a tenth of all to the 
Lord, and to-day he is worth forty thousand dollars. When 
I first became acquainted with him, twenty years ago, he 
was worth perhaps two thousand dollars. He is a farmer. 

From a Pastor in Northern New York.— A Wholesale 
Merchant of my acquaintance came to this country from 
England when a young man, and on arriving had some three 
hundred dollars which he loaned and worked as a journey- 
man tailor. He opened an account at that time, giving one- 
tenth of his income to benevolence and has conscientiously 
continued until this time, giving in the aggregate many 
thousands of dollars. He is now distributing thousands 
annually. 

From a Pastor in Iowa. — One of the richest and most 
influential men of this State is a layman in the M. E. Church 

in . He has religiously adhered to the one-tenth plan, 

and great prosperity and honor have been his. Numerous 
such instances have come to me in my ministry. 

From a Pastor in New Jersey.— For many years I have 
adopted the plan of giving one-tenth, never going below it, 
and in all these years have steadily prospered in worldly 
things. When my giving was irregular, small and spasmodic 
my temporal affairs followed in the same line. 

From a Pastor in Ohio. —A gentleman of my acquain- 
tance formerly had a little wagon shop. It was with great 
difficulty that he made a living for his family. He was 
called poor, and also had the reputation of being close. 

One Sabbath at our missionary anniversary he surprised 
us by giving a liberal contribution. The wonder was, what 
made him do it ? It soon became known that he had resolved 



140 The Methodist Armor. 

to give one-tenth to the Lord. It seems from that time he 
began to prosper. Business increased, opportunities opened 
before him. To-day he lives in one of the finest houses in 

the city, is one of the wealthiest men in the church in 

C and is a whole souled, generous christian. 

From a Pastor in New York.— I have been in the active 
work of a Pastor thirty-seven years, and have been an observ- 
er of the results of christian giving, and I have never known 
one case where a christian faithfully and uniformly gave 
conscientiously and proportionately who was not highly 
prospered in his temporal affairs. These are the very men 
God can trust with earthly goods. 

From a Pastor in Missouri.— I have been personally ac- 
quainted with but two men who have made it a rule to give 
unto the Lord the tenth of their increase, and they were 
prospered exceedingly. 

From a Pastor in Kentucky. — Proportionate giving, as it 
has passed under my observation, has been in every instance 
attended with prosperity, I may say with double prosperity. 
The givers have prospered in wordly good, and also in 
spiritual life. 

From a Pastor in Pennsylvania.— -Some time ago I was 
receiving from a christian gentleman in Philadelphia certain 
things needed in my church. He told me to make my own 
selection from the Lord's portion ; and remarked, that for 
thirty years he had been giving the one-tenth of his increase 
to the Lord. He commenced business on this principle ; 
and during all that time he has been enabled to pay 100 
cents on the dollar, and every year has had more and more 
to give back to Him from whom he received every good and 
perfect gift. 

From a Pastor in Maryland. — I have had a great deal to 
do with the finances of the church for years, and believe the 



Ministerial Support. 141 

systematic plan is the best. I know a brother in the church 
who commenced on a small business capital, and covenanted 
with God (wrote his pledge in a book) if he would prosper 
him, he would give one-tenth till he was worth ten thousand 
dollars, and then would give one-fourth until worth twenty- 
five thousand dollars, and after that give his whole income. 
In 1858 and 1859 I was his pastor, and he was then giving 
one-fourth. Since that time he has become worth $25,000, 
and now gives all his income. 

From a Pastor in Philadelphia. — Twenty-five years ago, 
when I had nothing but my salary of $100 a year, as a junior 
travelling Minister of the Phil. Con., I adopted the plan of 
devoting regularly one-tenth of my income to charitable and 
religious objects. I have adhered to the plan. God has 
graciously favored me in my ministry and blessed me in 
temporal things. I have been enabled to give away thou- 
sand, and have thousands left. 

From a Pastor in New York. — I commenced giving a 
tenth years ago, when I found that I was spending all my 
salary, and it was hard to give anything, I have found it a 
great comfort and pleasure to me ever since. One of my 
younger elders commenced the practice some years since, 
and no one among us has been so prospered in business as 
he, or gives so much. I know a wealthy banker, a Presby- 
terian elder, who commenced to do the same when a vouno- 
man, with little means, and now his gifts are large. 

From a Pastor in Iowa. — I knew a merchant, who gave 
10 per cent of his income. His business prospered, and bet- 
ter still, he grew as a christian, and was one of the most 
devout, humble and spiritually minded christians I ever 
knew. If he was thanked for a gift to some good object his 
reply was "you don't need to thank me, it is the Lord's 
money;" referring to his custom of laying aside a certain 
portion of his profits for the Lord's work. 



142 The Methodist Akmor. 

From a Pastor in Ohio. — I have practiced giving the 
tenth of my income to the Lord for years, and find that I 
give more money and give it more cheerfully, and I think 
more intelligently than he Fore. I have known several who 
a lopted this rule and in every case it worked well. One 
man who gave a tenth and was greatly prospered (giving one 
year to my knowledge $1800) was broken up in business by 
a company with which he was connected ; but I saw him in 
his adversity and he was the same happy christian man as 
formerly. He labored to glorify God with his wealth when 
he had it, and when it took wings and flew away he did not 
mourn over it. The last I heard the Lord was blessing him 
again in temporal matters. 

From a Pastor in Indiana. — It is my judgment that there 
is nothing that will so foster exact and honest business habits, 
in all other things as systematic paying to the Lord what we 
owe Him. This of itself will make for any of us many more 
dollars than it costs us in tithes and offerings. Really, to bo 
honest with God is one of the most selfish things I know of, 
for it comes back a hundred fold or more every time. I 
have a friend (one of the most prominent physicians here( 
who pursues this plan. It is a pleasure to see and hear him 
when I present any case to him, (if it commends itself) lie 
gives freely, and with the greatest manifest pleasure. He 
says, "It is not giving, only directing the gift." lie has been 
greatly prospered in every respect. 

From a Pastor in Iowa. — Some years ago I was in busi- 
ness and in debt, and, after making a covenant with the 
Lord (I had not learned that God had already male a cove- 
nant with me if I would come to it) to give Ilim one-tenth 
of all my increase, I gave all my affairs into His hands ask- 
in o; Ilim to just give or withhold as would be most for His 
glory. From that time my business increased, I had all I 



Ministerial Support. 143 

could attend to, and all seemed to turn to money. In a 
short time (about two years) I was out of debt. I have kept 
on giving one-tenth of all I received and have never lacked 
means. I have known others who have done this and all 
have been prospered. It is not so much the money we get, 
but oh, the joy of giving! There is no work in the vineyard 
of the Lord that gives more pleasure than doing duty in this 
way. 

From a Business Man in Chicago. — Mj grandfather fol- 
lowed the plan you suggest and his sons after him ; coming 
in the third generation I follow in their teachings. I began 
about eighteen years ago, and while I have been steadily 
prosperous, have never seen the year when there was not 
apparently some strong reason why I should not pay the 
tenth that year. The habit or plan has been the influence 
that carried me through. I know one christian man who 
was the soul of generosity, until one year he overs;ave largely, 
and then balanced by undergiving for two or three years ; 
the result, his gifts for ten years or longer have dwindled to 
a mere nothing. In this, as in other matters, the 'good Lord 
knows what we need to make character that will in the long 
run and on the broad scale, be most of a success in satisfac- 
tion to its possessor and usefulness to the world. 

From a Pastor in Central Nero York. — I have men in my 
church who have acted upon this principle for years. They 
are the largest givers but not the richest men. One of them 
said to me the other day that he was always surprised to find 
how much he had to give, and giving was a great pleasure. 
He is among the prosperous men of my church, and no 
blight of any kind has ever rested on his family. His 
children are prosperous and happy. All are grown up, doing 
for themselves and are an honor to their names. 

Many men in my church are what the world calls rich. 



144 The Methodist Armor. 

I run my mind over all the most prominent of them, but 
who are small givers, and I find that there is not one of them 
who has not a skeleton in his closet. I have never known a 
man who gave the one-tenth, or who gave proportionately, 
who was not blessed with a competency, if not great pros- 
parity. I take time to write you this because I feel if such 
facts as the above can be collected and given to the church, 
they must produce a profound impression. 

Note. — Many of the questions and answers, and the 
testimonials in the above were taken from a pamphlet pub- 
lished by a Methodist layman in Chicago. 

Application of the Plans. 

No plan however good can work itself. But any one of 
the plans mentioned can be easily worked. 

To illustrate : Let the Stewards take the Church Regis- 
ter, call every name, and assess every one, on the Quarterly, 
Monthly or Weekly payment plan — whichever one they may 
choose to work under — then at a Church Conference read 
out these assessments, and get each member's consent to the 
amount, 

The next thing to be done is to apply the means of col- 
lection. There are two ways' of doing this. The first is the 
envelope plan. In 1873, the envelope system of weekly con- 
tributions was introduced in the churches of New England 
which secured the most satisfactory results. This system is 
working remarkably well in many churches in the South* 
now. It is very simple. Suppose a man agrees to pay $13 
a year to be given weekly. Then every Sabbath he would 
enclose 25 cents in a envelope, and write on the back : 
For Pastor — 25 cents. 

Date 

Name 



Ministerial Support. 145 

and drop it into the collection basket, and the Treasurer 
finding the envelope would give the contributor credit on 
the general subscription book, and receiving credit for all 
thus given every Sabbath, the whole amount could be easily 
summed up at the close of the year. 

This envelope system can be just as easily applied to the 
Quarterly and Monthly payment plan. A man proposes to 
pay, or is assessed to pay $8 a year. Then at each Quarterly 
Meeting, he would enclose in an envelope $2, and send it to 
the Steward with name, amount, and date written on the 
back. The advantages of this system are many. 

1. It developes the habit of giving unto the Lord into a 
steady, self-acting principle. It makes giving a spontaneous, 
thoughtful, cheerful duty. And the "Lord loves a cheerful 
giver" — and so do men. 

2. It pays the preacher his money as it becomes due, 
and enables him to meet his current expenses without being 
embarrassed with debts. 

3. It relieves the Stewards of a vast deal of unpleasant 
work. 

4. It introduces the apostolic principle of foresight in 
giving. "Let every one of you lay by him in store as God 
hath prospered him." Look ahead and get ready to pay 
your church dues, is what he means. Get up the amount 
and lay it by in store against the time, it will be called for. 
Be thoughtful about this matter. Things done without 
premeditation is generally badly done. Have it- all arranged 
and ready beforehand then you have nothing to do but to go 
to what is laid up for the Lord and pay it. A certain man 
was always ready to pay. Being asked how it was that he 
was always so prompt, he replied : "Do you see that safe ? 
In that safe is a secret drawer. The drawer is marked, " The 
LorcPs drawer." Into that drawer, at the end of each week 



14G The Methodist Armor. 

I put one-tenth of all that I have made during the week, and 
when called upon to pay to the cause of the Lord I go to 
that drawer and get it." 

The Work of the Stewards. 

The duties of the Stewards are numerous and responsi- 
hle. They estimate the amount to he raised. And their 
estimates should always he liberal and generous. Stewards 
are examples to the people as to the spirit of liberality. Their 
closeness is apt to spread the same spirit among the people. 
The actual amount paid to the' pastor depends almost exclasircl// 
upon the energetic, and effective efforts of the stewards. 
Those who rely on spasmodic efforts fad. Those who are 
patient, skillful, and persevering are the ones that succeed. 
The steward should remember if he fail to discharge his 
duties, the cause of God will inevitably suffer. ]STo other 
member of the church feels at liberity to act in his place, 
and he therefore should do his work well or resign promptly. 
He should do his work heroically yet prudently. Let there 
be no shrinking back from duty — no cowardly apologies, no 
cold indifference. Giving is a means of grace to givers, ^o 
one therefore can be excused. It is more blessed to give 
than to receive. Giving builds up the spiritual manhood of 
the giver as well as pays the preacher. Non-giving churches 
perish out. It is stated, that fifty years ago, thirty Baptist 
churches in the State of Maryland declared themselves op- 
posed to giving, while two alone stood in favor of it. The 
two churches that cultivated the spirit of giving grew to 
thousands ; while the others dwindled away to only e'ght 
persons. "He that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully, 
he that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly." 

The steward will meet with many cold repulses while 
collecting. The excuses must be met. A common one is : 



Ministerial Support. 147 

"I don't like the preacher." Such persons should be re- 
minded that the giving is to be unto the Lord — not to men. 
The blessedness of giving is lost when the popularity of the 
preacher is made the ground of giving instead of the goodness 
of the Lord. If yon withhold money due the Lord, He says : 
"Ye have robbed Me" Another will say : "When will this 
everlasting bes^mo; for money cease?" "I am sick and 
wornout with it." The answer will be easy. It will never 
cease. It is God's law. While there remains the necessity 
for preaching — while there remains an unsaved soul on earth 
— till the light of the Gospel shall have gilded the hills and 
valleys of the entire globe and wraped the bine seas into 
eternal calm, there will be necessity for preaching, and so a 
necessity for paying tor it. Others will say "I am so poor, 
can give so little, that it is no nse for me to pay anything." 
The answer here is easy also. The obligation to give a 
penny, when one has it, rests upon the same ground as that 
of giving a thousand dollars. The ground of obligation is 
the same. What does the parable of the Talents teach ? It 
teaches that the man of one talent was held just as rigidly 
responsible as the man of ten. "It is so little," said he, "that 
I wont try to improA T e it." But his Lord cast him into outer 
darkness for the failure. Remember how the Savior com- 
mended the two mites of the poor widow. It is the rills 
uniting that make the great Mle-like river of beneficence. 
"Hard times" will be offered as an excuse for not contribut- 
ing. But the undismayed steward can reply : "Don't begin 
to cut down your expenses with the church. Better spend 
less money for jewelry and finery, foolish and sinful fashions, 
and pay the Lord's demand in full. It is not very consistent 
for a christian to stop giving to the church, and then keep 
up all other outlays to the old standard." 

Let the steward remember the responsibility of his 



14<S The Methodist Armor. 

position, and devote his energies to his work. Pan! pays: 
"Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found 
faithful." Be faithful to the duties of your office. Remem- 
ber how much depends on your activity and skill. By all 
means, let the stewards raise the preacher's claims by 
Quarterly installments. Be sure to square the account at 
every Quarterly Meeting. 

Rewards of Giving. 

"Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver 
him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him, and keep him 
alive ; and he shall be blessed upon the earth ; and thou wilt not 
deliver him unto the will of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen 
him on the bed of languishing ; thou wilt make all his bed in his 
sickness." — Ps. 41-1. 

"Trust in the Lord, and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, 
and verily thou shalt be fed. — Ps. 37-3. 

"Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of 
all thine increase: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy 
presses shall burst out with new wine." — Prov. 3-6. 

"There is that scattereth and yet iiicreaseth ; and there is that 
wiihholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The 
jiberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered 
also himself."— Prov. 19-17. 

"And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the 
afflicted soul, then shall thy light shine in obscurity, and thy dark- 
ness be as noonday ; and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and 
s uis.'y thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones ; and thou shalt 
be watered like a garden, and the springs of water whose waters 
fail not."— Is. 58-10. 

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be 
meat in my house ; and prove me now, herewith, saith the Lord of 
hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you 
cut a biessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And 
I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy 
the fruits of your ground, neither shall the vine cast her fruit before 
the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts." — .Mai. 8-10. 

"(live and it shall be given unto you — gcod measure, pressed 
down, shaken together and running over shall men give into your 



Ministerial Support. 149 

bosom. For with the same measure you mete withal it shall be 
measured to you again." — Luke G-38. 

"I have showed you all things, how that so laboring ye ought to 
support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how 
he said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' " — Acts 20-8-5. • 

"Every man as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give ; not 
grudgingly or of necessity ; for God loveth a cheerful giver. And 
God is able to make all grace (the word "grace" here refers to tempo- 
ral blessings) abound towards you ; that ye always having all suffi- 
ciency in all things may abound to every good work." — 2nd Cor. 9-7. 

These promises are conditional. We have no right to 
claim them except we comply with the conditions. If we meet 
them we shall realize true prosperity both in spiritual and tem- 
poral interests. The conditions and promises go together. 

If you decide to adopt Christian Paying as the rule of 
your life, the "Pledges" sent herewith may be found useful. 

"Prove the Lord now herewith.". 

Suggestions. 

"Giving, or paying, for that is the better word, should 
not be spasmodic or impulsive, it should be from principle. 
"We should know how much we receive and how much we 
give, and pur gifts or payments should always have a certain 
definite proportion to our income. 

AVhile we may speak of giving, the thought in the heart 
should be that of payment. Giving properly speaking com- 
mences when the tenth has been paid. 

Proportionate giving makes our Heavenly Father a 
partner in all our business transactions, and he will most 
surely bless a business or occupation in which he is recog- 
nized as a partner. By paying the one-tenth we become 
partners in His work, and transmute some portion of our 
little treasure into an imperishable possession, and we shall 
find it again, treasure laid up in heaven. 

There may be instances in which men with mistaken 



150 The Methodist Armor. 

motives may give too much for their temporal prosperity, 
but such men are never 'proportionate givers. 

Under the impulse of excited feeling men sometimes 
give too much to one object, and the effect is to render them 
unable, or unwilling to consider objects equally worthy. 
Such giving is not liberal. It is in fact illiberal, just as a 
man would be illiberal who should will all his property to 
one child, cutting off brothers and sisters equally worthy. 

God loves and will bless a cheerful giver, one who sets 
apart a proportion of his income as a debt to be paid back to 
the Great Giver, and who is watchful to bestow it where it 
will do the greatest good. 

If some one should intrust a sum of money to you to be 
bestowed as you thought best, leaving the choice of objects 
to you, you would of course give the matter thought, and 
use your best judgment in the selection. So it should be in 
Jill our gifts, for while they may be gifts to those who receive 
them, they are payments to God, and His blessing follows the 
cheerful giving of what is due to Him, to the most worthy 
objects, not forgetting that even in our giving we may be 
selfish, and remembering that to be liberal we must not con- 
fine our gifts to our own church or neighborhood. 

Proportionate giving unites religion and business. 
Those who adopt it as a rule of life, struggle to make more 
money that they may have a larger percentage of income for 
the Master's cause. They are also saved that absorbing 
spirit of worldliness that makes shipwreck of many a promis- 
ing christian manhood. 

We want to give while we live; with warm hands from 
loving hearts. There is no pleasure in giving with a dead 

o loo 

man's hand; and the miser who on his death bod gives 
largely to benevolence goes still a miser into the presence of 
his judge. We want to dispense our charities from day to 



Ministerial Support. 151 

day, in small sums if need be, not waiting for large ones, 
and making our lives like that of our Savior, a constant 
benediction. 

God's plan is that of constant but limited supply, and 
the great need of the church and the world is that christians 
should give constantly, regularly and proportionately as God 
prospers them. Let us give as an act of worship, as a 
blessed privilege, give, not to receive the approbation of man 
but the reward God gives. Give increasingly as God pros- 
pers with increasing wealth, with thanks to our Heavenly 
Father that he enables us to give, and for the happiness Ave 
thereby receive, as well as that we confer on others. 

There is no argument for the genuineness of Christianity 
that men so universally respect as a christian giving. They 
care little for large or impulsive giving, as they know that 
enthusiasm or over persuasion may have had the controlling 
influence, but they cannot withstand the argument of a 
charity which is ceaseless in its flow, and is constantly on the 
watch for right objects for its bestowal. 

The all important thought on this subject 'is that of 
jiroportionate giving or faying. Paul says'to the Corinthians, 
"upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by 
him in store as God hath prospered him." The plain in- 
ferences are 1st : regularity — "On the first day of the week," 
and 2nd : a certain proportionate definite share, "as God 
hath prospered him." 

Notice first that this is not an exhortation, but a com- 
mand, or order. He does not say "get ready and when I 
come I will preach a sermon on charity, and while under the 
influence of the preaching and while your hearts are warm 
with love and sympathy for the poor brethren at Jerusalem 
we will take up a large collection," but he says, "have every- 
thing in readiness that there be no ffatherin^ when I come." 



152 The Methodist Armor. 

Also notice that this order is not addressed to a few, or 
to the rich, but to "every one of you," and again that the 
epistle is directed not to the christians at Corinth alone, but 
also to 'all in every place that call upon the name of Jesus 
Christ our Lord.' " 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. 

I. Who are Admitted into the Methodist Church ? 

Adults who have been converted. Such persons of course 
who have realized a change of heart, who have felt that their 
sins have been pardoned, their hearts regenerated, and ex- 
perienced the fact that "the love of God has been shed abroad 
in their hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto them," are 
admitted into our church. It has ever been characteristic of 
Methodism to insist on experimental religion. The early 
Methodists preached experience, told their own experience, 
and this living experience, constitutes the very salt of 
Methodism, and keeps it from taint and mold. This ex- 
perience gives it a vital spirit. " Life and power" is a familiar 
note among our people. 

Methodism is a free spirit. "Liberty" is its watchword: 
liberty from sin, from bondage, body and soul ; liberty to 
pray loud or low ; to speak ; to use all the gifts bestowed, 
whether "one talent" or "ten," whether among men or wo- 
men ; liberty for all, learned or unlearned, rich or poor, 
young converts or old ones ; liberty to sino; whether by note 
or by rote, with the spirit and with the understanding; to 
sing in the choir or in the congregation ; liberty for all to 
sing, "not one in ten only." 

// is a simple spirit. Simplicity is characteristic of it; no 



Chfech Membership. 153 

affectation ; no pompous, mechanical, and strained dignity. 

It is an earnest spirit. Dr. Chalmers said, "Methodism 
is Christianity in earnest." It is a liberal spirit. Universal 
redemption for its theme, "the world for its parish," "perfect 
love" to God and man is its animus, it cannot be otherwise 
than liberal and catholic. It has often been repelled, but it 
repels none who "truly and earnestly repent." It receives 
as candidates even those who evince "a desire to flee from 
the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins." It 
welcomes to communion all the members of Christ's body. 

It is a fraternal spirit. Both the life and forms of 
Methodism lead directly to a strong fraternization. Love is 
its life, and the mutual freedom and equality in Christ Jesus 
which characterize all its social meetings and religious forms, 
tend to centralize the sympathy and feelings of the whole 
community. And it is from this in part that the power of 
Methodism as a system arises. Unity is power; life is 
power. They sing truly : 

"Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one, — 
Our comforts and our cares. 

We share our mutual woes ; 
Our mutual burdens bear ; 
And often for each other flows 
The. sympathizing tear." 

The class-meeting and the love-feast contribute much to 
foster this fraternal spirit. "The rich and the poor meet 
together; the Lord is the maker of them all." Hence the 
cordial greeting, the familiar "brother" and "sister," "all 
one in Christ Jesus," not, however, to the exclusion of "other 
sheep which are not of this fold." Free communion with all 
the body of Christ is the token of its catholicity. 

It is a, happy spirit. Methodists believe in getting happy 
in religion. "Rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, in 



154 The Methodist Armoe. 

everything give thanks, " is one of its favorite proof-texts. 
Here is one of its notes of triumph : 

"How happy is the pilgrim's lot ; 
How free from every anxious thought, 

From worldly hope and fear ! 
This happiness in part is mine, 
Already saved from low design, 

From every creature care." 

Take another excellent specimen strain : 

"While the angel choirs are crying, — 

Glory to the great I AM, 
I with them will still be crying, 

Glory ! glory to the Lamb ! 
O how precious 
Is the sound of Jesus' name !" 

Hence, "shouting" is but the legitimate expression of 
the happiness within. At least, it is a legitimate offspring. 
It is not to be manufactured, and under some circumstances 
should not be repressed, if the soul would enjoy its freedom. 

Xow, who that has seen Methodism on its own feet, and 
in its own native attire, and "dwelling under its own vine 
and fig-tree," does not know that these arc characteristics of 
its spirit, its genius ? 

How strange, then, that Methodists themselves should 
ever bo ashamed of their characteristics ? How strange that 
they should seek to accommodate it to the fastidiousness of 
other denominations, or to the proud conceits of the world. 
They may do it, but it will be at the expense of its power 
and true glory. One fact is remarkable and significant. 
Generally, when any special revival interest appears among 
other denominations, they are found to have adopted more 
or less of our peculiarities ; our hymns and tunes, our free 
salvation preaching, our altar labor to a considerable extent, 
and our tree social exercises; so much so, that the remark is 



Church Membership. 155 

common even among the world and others, "Why, they 
preach and pray, etc., just like the Methodist." Amen ! let 
them do so. But, then, mark two or three things : 

1. This remark recognizes Methodism as the standard 
in these things, and that is no small compliment. 

2. It shows that other denominations recognize these 
peculiarities as the secret of success, so far as means are 
concerned. 

3. It rebukes the folly of Methodist in ignoring, or dis- 
countenancing, or neglecting these characteristics. 

This spirit of Methodism appeals strongly to the moral 
sensibilities of mankind, to their felt necessities, and even to 
the spiritual among other denominations. In trying to im- 
prove Methodism, let us not lose sight of its genius, its 
spirit, remembering that the church is to be "a habitation of 
God through the Spirit," and is to be conformed in its spirit 
and worship to the "pattern seen in the mount." 

II. Penitent Seekers. 

The Methodist Church besides opening her doors to 
adult converts, takes in also penitent seekers. The following 
is the condition for the admission of such persons : 

" There is only one condition 'preciously required of those who 
desire admission into these societies: — A desire to flee from the 
wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins." This condition 
implies a willingness to be saved. This willingness to be 
saved implies also a readiness to be all and do all that the 
Gospel requires of those who become partakers of salvation — 
a willingness to accept of salvation "from sin." To be will- 
ing to accept of salvation, therefore, implies a desire to be 
delivered from the dominion of sin. It implies such repent- 
ance as hates sin and desires purity of heart, and a fixedness 
of purpose to use the means of grace prescribed by the 



156 The Methodist Armor. 

church in order to attain actual salvation. Hence such per- 
sons coming into our church pledge themselves : 1. To ab- 
stain from all evil; 2. To do good of every land; 3. To attend 
upon all the ordinances of God. This "desire to flee the 
wrath to come and be saved from sin," is a deep, moving, 
stirring desire "fixed in the soul." It is not a feeble, transient 
desire, but such a desire as brings forth fruit meet for re- 
pentance — a desire ripening into repentance towards God 
and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance implies 
pre-existing faith, and faith implies pre-existing repentance. 
Both are produced by the preliminary grace of the Holy 
Spirit, to be perfected by the willingness of man using the 
means of salvation. Now when such persons come to us 
desiring to be saved, we admit them into the church, where 
complete salvation ma}^ be attained. Much has been said by 
way of objection to the Methodist Church for admitting such 
penitent seekers of religion. But we think our practice is in 
harmony with Scriptural teaching. We think it may be laid 
down as a safe rule, that the man, who is authorized to claim, 
the gracious promises of God, is a fit person to join the church. 
To the sincere penitent, "desirous to flee from the wrath to 
come, and be saved from sin," the promises of saving grace 
are offered. 

Proofs. — The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, 
and sooeth such as be of a contrite spirit. Psa. 34 : 18. The sacrifices 
of God are a broken spirit ; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou 
wilt not despise. Psa. 51 : 17. Thus saith the Lord, I dwell with 
him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the 
humble, and revive the heart of the contrite ones. Isa. 57 : 15. I will 
turn their mourning into joy ; I will comfort them, and make them 
rejoice from their sorrow. Jer. 31 : 13. Jesus began to preach, and 
say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matt. 4: 17. 
Repent, and be baptized, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remis- 
sion of sins. Acts 2: 38. The men of Nineveh were saved, "Because 
they repented at the preaching of Jonah." 



Church Membership. 157 

Notes. 

1. A purpose to be a christian, a state of penitence, a 
desire to be delivered from sin, were clearly the terms of 
admission to the Christian Church, at the very commence- 
ment of it. This will appear from the following : 

From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent : for 
the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And Jesus, walking by the sea 
of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his 
brother, casting a net into the sea : for they were fishers. And ho 
saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. 
And they straightway left their nets, and followed him. And going 
on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, 
and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending 
their nets ; and he called them. And they immediately left the ship 
and their father, and followed him. Matt. 4: 17-22. 

Notice — Peter, Andrew, James and John, were engaged 
when Christ found them in their daily toil. Christ com- 
manded them to follow Him. The command was very 
simple. The thing to be done was not mysterious, and there 
was no difficulty in obeying it. The thing was practicable. 
It lay in the scope of their ability to forsake their calling 
and follow Him. Christ is the head of the church and they 
united themselves to Him. There is no profession of re- 
generation preceding their joining themselves to Christ. 
There is no relating of their experience. There is no de- 
mand made by Christ requiring them to be converted before 
they become His disciples. So far as we can see there was 
only a desire to be saved, and "they immediately left the ship, 
and their father, and followed Him" in order to be saved. 

Again, Christ, in his sermon on the Mount, says : 
"Blessed are the poor in spirit ; for theirs is the kingdom of 
God." To feel poor in spirit is to feel humble, penitent, 
empty of all good. Just such persons as Our General Rule 
describes. Such persons "are blessed" because "theirs is the 



158 The Methodist Armor. 

kingdom of God." "The kingdom of God" here means 
either the church on earth, or the church triumphant in 
heaven, or the kingdom of grace in the soul. But if the 
penitent has the kingdom of grace in his soul, then he is a fit 
and suitable person to become a member of the visible church. 
Such persons were admitted into the Primitive Church. 
Justyn Martyr says of such, that, "when they had given good 
proofs of their resolutions to lead a pious, religious life, and 
had protested their assent and consent to all the christian 
.verities, they were baptized," and of course, admitted into 
the church. 

That true penitents may be baptized and admitted into 
the church is Scriptural is clear from the following : "Then 
Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of 
you in the name of Jesus Christ for (unto) the remission of 
sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Acts 
2 : 37, 38. Here we see that repentance and baptism plainly 
preceded the gift of the Holy Ghost, that regenerates the soul. 
These penitents were baptized, and added to the company of 
christians. It must be clear to all impartial minds that the 
Methodist practice of receiving penitent seekers into the 
bosom of the church, rests upon broad Scriptural grounds. 

When Christ called men to be His disciples, He did not 
seek perfect men. He says: "Come and join my school; 
be my scholar." The church is a spiritual school. But is a 
man to be kept out of school because he is ignorant ? Schools 
are opened for illiterate people, not for ripe scholars. If a 
man desires to be a soldier, he joins the army. And as soon 
as he joins the army he is a soldier, though he is far off from 
being a trained veteran. He is a soldier just as really when 
his name goes down on the. roll, and he goes out with 
awkwardness to be drilled as after he has been in the army 
ten years. Therefore, when we find men having a spark of 



Church Membership. 159 

grace in their souls, we encourage them to join the church, 
where the spark can he kindled to such a name of love as 
illumines and warms the whole man. They have germs, 
which "being planted in the garden of the Lord, may become 
fruitful trees. 

Bishop Marvin says : "God has ordained in the church 
many efficient aids, and many means of grace, through which 
the earnest penitent and more advanced believer are alike 
strengthened and helped forward in the christian race. The 
fellowship of saints and the ordinances of religion quicken 
the spiritual perception and sensibility, and encourage and 
strengthen faith. The mere fact of membership in the 
church, exerts a most wholesome effect on the mind and 
heart." In one sense, the church is a spiritual hospital, 
where sick and wounded penitents may be carried for the 
purpose of having nursing and healing influences administer- 
ed to them by the members of the church. Who does not 
see that it is infinitely easier to work out the salvation of the 
soul in the church than out of it. 

Let it be understood once for all that we do not open 
our church to sinners, to impenitent men, nor merely to well 
wishers to religion, nor to men who are moralists, but to 
penitent seekers of religion. 

We ask them to come in, no matter how infirm they 
may be, and no matter how small their religious experience 
may have been. Babes in Christ, they need nourishing; 
and here is the motherhood into which they may come. I 
have seen a great many persons come it with flash and flame, 
who went out ashes ; and I have seen a great many persons 
come in like the little germ of a plant that just breaks the 
ground, without leaf or apparent power to live ; and they 
have grown until the birds of the air lodged in their branches. 
We do not ask persons to come in with grandeur of attain- 



1G0 The Methodist Armor. 

ment; but if there are any babes, according to the under- 
standing of Christ, who said, "Except ye become as little 
children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of God," we 
ask them to come in. If there are any who long to be better, 
who are determined by the help of God to transform their 
lives, and who are willing to be helped, to be loved, to be 
borne with, to be instructed, and to be put forward in the 
Christian life, it is our office to take them in. We are nurses 
of just such children. We are schoolmasters of just such 
scholars. They, by-and-by, will be able to render to others 
that very service which they have had bestowed upon them ; 
and so the work will go on. We do not ask them to come 
in because they have got through a supernatural experience, 
however high or low. We want them provided the work of 
grace is begun in them. We ask them to come in on the 
same ground that we ask tender plants to step in under glass 
in March when frost is in the air. They cannot afford to 
stay out, they are so tender and so poor. 

2. Growth in Grace. — While the church admits penitent 
seekers, she at the same time urges them never to stop seek- 
ing until they feel their sins pardoned and the love of God 
shed abroad in their heart. Then she sets a very high 
standard of christian character before them to be attained by 
growth in grace. To begin well is only a starting point to 
go on to perfection. To join the church is only a stepping 
stone to reach the full assurance of salvation. We are ex- 
horted to 2:0 on to a state of entire sanctification. As the 



to 



sun emerging from the horizon of the east, rises upwards to 
his noontide splendor; so the path of the just is to shine 
more and more unto the perfect day. As the river flows 0:1 
and on to the expanse of the great ocean ; so the stream of 
repentance liows on and on till it swells out into the full 
river of sanctification. That mustard seed of spiritual life is 



__ 



Church Membership. 161 

to grow up into a lofty tree among whose branches the birds 
of joy are to sing. That spiritual babe must grow up into a 
full stature of christian manhood. 

3. The Means of Grace. — Remember that there are 
means instituted by God, which we are to observe that we may 
grow in grace. So far as we know God always works through 
instruments in producing results. This is the case in nature. 
The beautiful heavens and the fruitful earth are made, but 
they are made by the Word, of His power. God enlightens 
and warms the world, but it is through the instrumentality 
of the sun, moon, and stars. He imbues the soil with the 
productive principle — sends clouds to pour down rain, pro- 
vides the seeds, light and heat, but there God leaves the 
matter. Man can plough the fields, and accordingly God 
leaves him to do so, or he will have no food to sustain him. 
Man can sow and cultivate, and God leaves him to do so, 
otherwise he will reap no golden harvests to fill his barns. 
It is the same in grace. God has established a system of 
saving grace for the benefit ot man. The Bible, the Sabbath, 
prayer, the preaching of the everlasting Gospel, songs, faith, 
the communion of the saints. Through these He conveys 
saving grace, as He does light and heat through the sun, and 
rain through the clouds. But upon whom ? 2s"ot upon the 
careless and the disobedient, but upon those who regularly 
and prayerfully wait upon Him in the faithful use of these 
means. " Work out your own salvation" is the great command. 

It is well to beo-in a religious life, but something more 
than beginning is necessary to secure salvation. After a 
man has laid a good foundation, he must go on to rear up 
and finish the superstructure of his house. After a man has 
planted his crop, he must go on to cultivate in order to insure 
a matured crop. Ripeness of piety comes slowly as sweetness 
is wrought into the green fruit. It does not blossom sud- 



102 The Methodist Armor. 



denly into life. It is not a garment woven in heaven and 
dropped upon the shoulders of a believer. God clothes us 
with His own righteousness as He clothes trees with verdure, 
by a process of growth from within. It begins within and 
works out into the beauty of holiness. The desire begins 
within and goes out into holy living. "Blessed are they 
which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they 
shall be filled." 

"The figure of hunger and thirst after righteousness in- 
dicates an indescribable longing for it ; one that cannot be 
denied. You shall have this righteousness, says the Scrip- 
ture, when you search for it as for hid treasure. The silver 
is dug out of the hills by pick and gun powder. It is put 
under the hammer and beaten into line dust ; it is put into 
one furnace and melted ; into a second furnace and melted 
again ; into a third furnace and melted again, and so through 
five or six refinings, before it is ready for the mint or jeweler. 
Dreaming of godliness will no more give you godliness than 
dreaming of knowledge will give you knowledge. It is 
given only to him who says, "I will work for it with a pick, 
and if I cannot get it with a pick will use gunpowder. And 
when it is once got in the crude state, I will not be content 
with that. If God puts me in the furnace once, twice, thrice, 
I will rejoice. I will not be content until he has burned me 
and burned me, until the dross is all consumed, so that I 
may be ready to be his coin on earth and his crown in 
heaven." Did Abraham find the road to godliness an easy 
one, when he turned his back upon home, and friends, and 
country, and worship, and went out to be the first emigrant 
to a strange land, not to seek more wages, or better earthly 
conditions, but that he might find liberty to serve God ac- 
cording to his own conscience? Did Moses find it easy, 
driven into the wilderness, and repressing the powers that 



Church Membership. 163 

seemed to be calling him to greater work, to be forty years a 
herdsman of cattle, and for forty years a herdsman of im- 
bruted slaves ? Did David find it easy, fieeins; from cave to cave 
before the huntsmen of Saul ? Did Paul find it easy, thrice 
beaten with rods, five times receiving forty stripes save one, 
shipwrecked, stoned, in perils oft on sea and land ? Read 
the autobiographical reminiscences of Paul in Corinthians, 
see how he was put under the hammer and beaten out and 
then cast into the furnace again and again, that so he might 
receive God's answer to his perpetual prayer" : "Nearer, my 
God, to thee ; nearer to thee !" 

III. The Introduction of Baptized Children into the 

Church. 

The Discipline says: 1. "Let the minister diligently 
instruct and exhort all parents to dedicate their children to 
the Lord in baptism as early as convenient. 2. Let him pay 
special attention to the children, speak to them personally 
and kindly on experimental and practical godliness. 3. As 
soon as they comprehend the responsibilities involved in a 
public profession of faith in Christ, and gives evidence of a 
sincere and earnest determination to discharge the same, see 
that they be duly recognized as members of the church agreeably to 
the provisions of the Discipline." 

Here we see that baptized children coming to the years 
of accountability and giving "evidence of a sincere and 
earnest determination"' to live as christians, should be taken 
into the church. To admit them into the church is a Dis- 
ciplinary duty laid upon every Methodist pastor — a duty as 
clearly defined as that of taking in believing adults. And 
yet how generally this duty is neglected. How few are in 
the church ? Thousands of Methodist children duly baptized 
are left to grow up in ignorance and wander off into for- 



164 The Methodist Armor. 

bidden paths. They are as fully out of the church as those 
unbaptized. They grow up in open non-membership and are 
regarded as outside sinners. Who are to blame for this ? 
Generally, parents and pastors. Is not something wrong 
among us as to this matter. 

"Churches, parents, and teachers are to bring up the 
children under their care in the nurture and admonition of 
the* Lord ; but to a very large extent christians have brought 
up their children in the hope that when they shall have 
arrived at years of discretion (which are usually supposed to 
be somewhere from fifteen to twenty-one years of age) they 
will then themselves become christians. I hold that it 
is possible so to rear our children that they shall be converted 
from the cradle, and grow up in the nurture and admonition 
of the Lord — some without a break, and some subject to 
these normal disturbances which come from physical causes 
in the readjustment of the system at its maturity. If 
christian parents and christian teachers were consistent, and 
were in the true faith of Christ Jesus, I believe that genera- 
tions of children might be brought up who never would 
know the point at which the transition was made. They 
would be taught to love Christ, and to adopt the great 
christian element of character — love — and, by it, to cast out 
evil, to build, and to acquire habits and experiences, so that 
when they came to man's estate it would not be through all 
the tanidements, besetments and soilings of an ordinary 
earthly experience. They would come honorable, truthful, 
loving, full of faith, full of hope, full of purity, from the 
cradle to the church. And I do not simply believe this to 
be possible in rare cases. I do not believe there will ever 
be a day of millenium till it is done. I do not believe there 
will ever be a prevalence of Christianity, until, instead of try- 
ing to fish for the few adults that can be brought from evil 



Church Membership. 165 

into good, we learn to take life at its be^inninsrs, and to train 

CD ' o o > 

generations from the first to true manhood, passing through 
infancy and youth into the full development of christian life. 

Persons, we all know, are more susceptible at the earl} 7 
age than at any other. Children are not superior to men in 
knowledge, nor in strength, nor in discrimination. There 
are a thousand of the acquirements by which a man battles 
with the world that they are not superior in. But there is 
one all important principle which belongs to childhood, and 
not any other time ; viz : that peculiar development of the 
soul by which it knows how to take hold of another, and to 
borrow its light from that other. 

To borrow an orchard illustration, there is but one 
period of the year in which you can graft well. It may be 
possible to graft successfully at other times ; but there is one 
period when you must make the transfer if you would take 
a bud from one tree, and graft it into another, and have it 
produce its kind, and do the best that it is capable of doing. 
There is but just one season when the bark lifts easily, and 
the staff is in the right condition. 

There is a time, also, when the little natures bud easily, 
and graft easily. It is possible to graft them at other times, 
by extra elaboration ; but more than half of the grafts will 
blow out, as the saying is. There is a period, however, in 
which ninety-nine out of a hundred will stick and grow. 
For all the adaptations of the child at that time are such as 
to incline it to borrow its life from another. It feeds upon 
another instinctively. It is a little parasite. It is but the 
transfer of that which is its need and instinct to the blessed 
Savior. And then it becomes a christian child. And so, 
adhering to Christ by love and by trust, and drawing its 
little life from Christ, it begins the christian career. And 
they would go on and grow in thousands an 1 thousands of 



166 The Methodist Armor. 

instances, if it were not that parents have an absurd notion 
that when Christ is born into persons, he is a self-registering 
and sslf-taking-care-of Christ, so that they say, "If my child 
is born of God, God will take care of his own work." As if 
a pomologist should come in and say, "I have put a graft; 
into that tree, and if nature is true to herself, she will take 
care of that graft." Nobody says so about trees. The man 
binds up the graft so that it shall be held in its place, so that 
the water shall not get in, and so that it shall not be blown 
out, until it gains strength sufficient to take care of itself; 
and then he leaves it to the force of nature. 

But many people, in bringing up their children in the 
nurture and admonition of the Lord, look with great suspi- 
cion on early christian experiences. They are afraid of 
abnormal growths. They are afraid of such material as 
•Sunday-school libraries and biographies are made up of. 
They regard early conversions 'as indicating disease at the 
root, or in the body of the tree. They do not believe in 
children being really christians because they do not see in 
the child that which they would look for in a ripe christian. 
But if they would look for a babe-Jesus in a little babe they 
would find that there. And if they would treat the babe- 
Christ as they would the babe boy, or the babe girl, and 
nourish it and carry it in their arms, and rear it step by step ; 
it they would treat it as a little child embosomed and arm- 
encircled ; if they would shield it as it goes through all 
temptation and all trial, they would make straigh'cr 
christians, better branched christians, more fruitful christians, 
than those that are made, at last, oat of old and bad growths, 
by lopping away the pernicious boughs. There never will 
be the ripest and most symmetrical characters in tli3 Church 
of Christ till we learn how to bring them up from the seed 
in the Spirit of the blessed Master. 



Churcii Membership. 167 

There are many persons whose children give every 
evidence of being truly christian, but whose parents shrink 
from bringing them into the fold. "Ah !" say they, "what 
if they should fall away ?" The shepherd's boy comes in 
and says, "the ewe has dropped a lamb far out in the 
pasture ; shall I bring it up to the barn, and put it inside of 
the yard ?" "No," says the shepherd, "let it stay out to- 
night, and if the wolf does not get it, and the cold chill does 
not kill it, and it lives till to-morrow, and the next day, it 
will be worth keeping, and you can bring it in." But if the 
lamb can live in spite of the cold and wind, and without the 
care of the shepherd, he does not need to bring it in then. 

There are many persons who say of the 3 r oung, Shall 
they be gathered into the church ? Shall we run the risk of 
their bringing disgrace upon the church by their fall ? 
"Which is the most important in the name of God, the 
church, or the souls of men for which Christ died? The 
church, looked at as the servant of God's clear people, rises 
be/ore my thought most beautiful ; but if the church dare to 
take the place of a soul of a man and make itself more pre- 
cious and nobler than the soul, the poorest and lowest and 
least, I will regret it. The servant has usurped the place 
of the master, under such circumstances. For the church is 
God's slave, sent to take care of God's children, and if the 
church is good for anything, it is good to take in little chil- 
dren, and shelter them; to take in the wayfarer, and to 
shelter him ; to take in the spiritually poor, and to shelter 
them. 

Suppose that they do break down, and do not get on 
well in the church ? Is a hospital brought into disgrace be- 
cause patients die there whom the doctors have tried to cure ? 
Is a school brought into disgrace because some dullards go 
in fools and come out idiots ? And shall a church be always 



168 The Methodist Armor. 

trying to take care of itself, instead of taking care of that 
which God loves better than anything else — the souls of his 
dear children ? Bring your little children into the church. 
Let Christ be born in them the hope of glory. Let there be 
a babe-Christ in their little experiences. Let them be formed 
into classes. Do not leave them out with the wolf. Do not 
leave them until they are strong enough to go along without 
a church, and then bring them in. See that they are taken 
care of and nourished. 

Those who have been brought into the church young 
within the circuit of nry own experience, have on the whole, 
with single exceptions of miscarriage, here and there, en- 
dured, and come out into a true christian life, with far better 
prospects, and more symmetrical dispositions, than those 
who have been brought in late in life. 

One may be a christian, who is yet very far from the 
beauty and symmetry and manhood of piety. We are not 
to suppose that they only are christians who are beautiful 
christians, or who are embellished with all christian graces^ 
•A man may be a christian, and his Christ may be a babe. 
A man may be a christian, and the christian nature in him 
may yet be, as it were, in its boyhood. 7 ' 

"There are but two kingdoms, one of truth and good- 
ness and light, the other of falsehood and selfishness and 
darkness. The little children do not belong to the kingdom 
of the devil till some one has rescused them in Christ's name, 
they belong to Christ unless the devil carries them off and 
makes them captives to sin and death, from which they may 
still be rescued by christian chivalry. The little children arc 
not to wait till they become as men before they can enter into 
Christ's kingdom; the grown men arc to be converted and 
become as little children before they can enter it. All 
children are Christ's ; it is the duty and the privilege of 



Church Membership. 169 

parents, not to wait with anxiety till they grow to years of 
discretion and then hope to convert them from evil to him : 
it is their privilege to train them for him from the cradle, to 
so train them that they shall always go steadily forward, 
growing in grace and in the knowledge of God, going on 
from victory to victory. In their earliest and feehlest strug- 
gles they have Christ's sympathy and help ; in their earliest 
life, before the first shoots have begun to appear above the 
ground, they are his. The Sun of righteousness does not 
confine his shining to the great trees ; it shines on the hid- 
den seed and makes trees of them. 

We have a right to hope, to pray, to expect for our 
children that, like John the Baptist, they will be filled from 
their mother's womb with the Holy Spirit. It is a most 
dangerous error to suppose that they cannot have the divine 
help and inspiration till they have come to be old enough to 
comprehend its desirability and to ask for it. It is a most 
dangerous error to suppose that our children must live in the 
wilderness till they are old enough to seek the promised land 
of their own accord. Xot till the church learns to train its 
own children, not only for Christ but in Christ, from the 
cradle, so that they shall always be Christ's, will it begin to 
really vanquish the world. Till then it can hope for nothing 
more than to make reprisals. 

I believe that those of us who really believe this should 
carry out our belief consistently ; that we should regard our 
children as members of the church as truly as they arc citi- 
zens of the commonwealth ; that we should repudiate in 
stronger terms than we are wont to do the notion that they 
cannot be members of the outward community of saints till 
they have reached years of discretion ; that we should ac- 
custom ourselves to regard them as members with us of the 
household of faith and should accustom them to so regard 



170 The Metiiodist Armor. 

themselves ; and that we may well use the rite of baptism 
as a sign of this faith that brings our children into Christ's 
household with ourselves." 

Baptized children then ought to be enrolled by name in 
the Register of each church, as composing a distinct class of 
candidate members, and thus be held in expectancy till the 
time when they are to be examined, and those that are found 
to meet the prescribed conditions of the Discipline, should 
be admitted into the full membership of the church. 

IV. The Duty of Joining the Church. 

1. Every one desiring to save his soul should seek a 
spiritual home in some branch of the church of God. That 
this is a duty is seen from the teaching and practice of the 
early disciples. The converts on the day of Pentecost im- 
mediately joined the band of disciples. "And the same day 
there were added unto them about three thousand souls." 
Acts 2 : 4. Also the converts in Lystra, Iconium, and 
Antioch were organized into churches. Hence it is said of 
the apostles : "They returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, 
and to Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples, and 
exhorting them to continue in the faith." Acts 14: 22. 
Within the church thus organized are the ordinances of the 
Gospel, which are means appointed by God to help us work 
oat our salvation — such as spiritual discipline, the commu- 
nion, and the pastoral watch-care. 

2. Consider too the benefit of pulpit instruction. How 
much light and warmth it sheds upon the world in this way. 
Think of seventy thousand ministers in the United States — 
men of culture and well skilled in preaching, pouring every 
Sabbath streams of moral light and truth upon the people, 
what a vast amount of good is done. What a great help it 
is to sit under the enlightening and stirring ministrations of 



Church Membership. 171 

the pulpit. It has pleased God to save men by preaching. 

3. Then again, in the church, is the stirring influence of 
sacred song. The hymn-book is a power in the land. There 
can never be such a bond of union as sweet and animating 
sons:. How often on the wings of sons; our dull souls begin 
to take fire and rise heavenward. How often it comes as a 
refreshing rain on parched fields. 

4. Furthermore, the church generates spiritual warmth. "It 
is difficult for single individuals, unless they be very highly 
endowed, to create in themselves fervor when alone. Now 
and then there is a nature that can generate its own fire ; 
but ordinarily you must put stick upon stick, and spark to 
spark, and flame to flame in order to make fervor. And it 
is the association of feeling, it is feeling in the multitude, 
whose thought kindles in each individual the highest forms 
of emotion. There are very few who have the power of 
solitary zeal ; and there are very few who have not the power 
of associated zeal. The christian religion depended at the 
first, and has ever since depended, and will to the eiid depend, 
very largely on church conditions. For a religion whose 
element is love, and not awe ; a religion whose very life is 
sweet and pure emotion, must thrive by the social principle. 
It was never meant that christians should be solitary. It 
was never meant that they should feed themselves. It was 
meant that they should thrive in their combined and asso- 
ciated capacities. 

5. In church association also, the feeble and ignorant 
get trom the gifts of all an education which is not possible 
in any other way. A church that has a real christian life in 
it, is one of the best schools to which men can go. If when 
the disciples had professed the name of Christ, each one had 
made his own house the center, and his own relatives ex- 
clusive companions, there would have been hundreds and 



172 The Methodist Armor. 

thousands in the course of time who would have been almost 
without instruction. But by the gathering together of the 
humble and lowly with those of culture and refinement in 
intimate association, the under classes gained, and the upper 
classes lost nothing." 

6. Church membership cultivates brotherly love and mutual 
assistance. "As soon as the idea of brotherhood was once 
introduced ; as soon as men felt that God was their Father, 
and that Jesus Christ w r as their Elder brother, and that they 
were all brethren, and they began to come together with 
that feeling in their hearts, instantly there took place a pro- 
cess of evolution and of education which never can be 
measured, and which can scarcely be overestimated. 

There is an education of the books, and there is an 
education in the higher forms in schools ; but the general 
education which the community receive depends largely 
upon the association of men with men. It is the unconscious 
and general action of the higher natures upon the inter- 
mediate or lower, that is perpetually working in society ; 
therefore, a church that gathers together its members, if 
there be a sweet and blessed affection, flowing through the 
church, then the best lives in the church become instructors, 
and all the poorest lives — the lives of the whole spiritual 
household — are pervaded by a common religious sentiment — 
the gifts of all belong to each ; and the gifts of each belong 
to all. For general instruction, then, and for the develop- 
ment of emotive life, it is wise for those that love the Lord 
Jesus Christ to gather themselves together." 

These are some of the reasons for joining the church, 
that existed in the past and will still exist to the end of time. 
"We invite men into church fellowship because it is a duty, it 
is a happier life and a more useful one. 

Objections met. "Well but," says one, "I do not feci 



Church Membership. 173 

that I am worthy to join the church." If you mean by this 
that your un worthiness arises from living in the commission 
of some sin, secret or known, and you do not mean to 
abandon sin, then you are not fit. There can he no advance 
made in securing- salvation either in or out of the church till 
a man makes up his mind to forsake evil and learn to do 
well. But if you mean, as is most generally the case, that 
you are not worthy because you have not reached the standard 
of spiritual excellence, then our reply is, that you are like a 
sick man who does not feel worthy to be cured, or a boy 
hanging around a school house saying, "I am too ignorant 
to go in and become a scholar." What is a hospital for but 
to cure sick men or school houses for but to educate illiterate 
persons ? The church is a curative institution. It is an 
educating institution. It is a household where spiritual 
babes are to be feed and raised. 

"0 well," some say, "we don't like to take upon our- 
selves the duties and obligations of church membership." 
There is not a duty resting on a member of the church, that 
does not rest on men outside of the church. Moral obliga- 
tions rest upon men whether they be in or out of the church. 
There is not a single duty that will be incumbent upon you 
when you go into the church, that is not incumbent upon 
you now. Is there any obligation greater than this : " Thou 
sha.lt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and mind, and, 
soul, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself?" And does 
this royal law not become binding till a man joins the church ? 
Why, its obligations fell on you the very hour you crossed 
the line of accountability. It rests upon }-ou in or out of the 
church. The church does not create moral obligation, it 
only helps us to perform the duties that God has laid upon us. 



174 The Methodist Armor. 



CHAPTER XV. 

METHODISM AND SUNDA Y SCHOOLS. 

I. Origin. 

While Mr. "Wesley was a missionary in Georgia "he 
established a school of forty children, which he placed under 
the care of Mr. Dellomotte, a man of good education, who 
endeavored to blend religious instruction with secular learn- 
ing ; and on Sunday afternoon Wesley met them in the 
church before evening service, heard the children recite their 
catechism, questioned them as to what they had heard from 
the pulpit, endeavoring to fix the truth in their understand- 
ing as well as in their memories. This was a regular part 
of his Sunday duties, and it shows that John Wesley, in the 
parish of Savannah, had established a Sunday-School fifty years 
before Robert Raikes originated his noble scheme in Gloucester, 
and eighty years before the first school in America, on Mr. 
Raikes' plan, was established in the city of New York." 
Mrs. Susannah Wesley, mother of John Wesley, had a 
Sunday School in England in 1764 — seventeen years before 
Mr. Raikes organized his school in 1781. In 1783, Bishop 
Asbury organized a Sunday school in Virginia. 

II. Eminent Usefulness of these Schools. 

1. Think of the hundreds of thousands of children, who 
have been led to Christ through these schools. General 
statistics show that, during the past eighteen years 285,730 
converted souls have passed from the Sunday schools into the 
bosom of the M. E. Church, North. And what is true of 
this church is no doubt true of others. Truly, these schools 
arc the nurseries of the church. 

"Some years since, a noted horticulturist took me to 



Methodism and Sunday Schools. 175 

see his orchard of young peach trees. It was a splendid 
sight. Thousands of trees standing in long rows, and com- 
prising all the rich varieties of that delicious fruit. I said to 
him, "I presume you are very careful in the selection of your 
peach-kernels in order to get the rarest quality of fruit." 
"jSTo," replied he ; "we plant whatever comes to hand and 
then we hud them. Every one of these trees was budded." 
This brought to lisrht a curious fact in horticulture. Does 
the gardener wish to raise a rare and splendid fruit, he takes 
a bud or sprout from a hearing tree and grafts it. No mat- 
ter how poor a variety the stock may he upon which he 
grafts it. The hud will preserve its own identity ; it will 
grow up and hear its own fruit. Thus the tree will he made 
to bear fruit entirely different from, and infinitly superior to, 
that which its own nature would have produced. Our Sun- 
day school system is a system of spiritual horticulture. It is 
designed to ingraft into the young heart "the incorruptible 
seed" of the Word of God. No matter how unpromising 
the variety or individual. It will take root ; it will grow up ; 
preserve its own idenity ; blossom in unfading beauty ; send 
forth heavenly odors ; and ripen into immortal fruit. My 
brethren let us learn a lesson from the horticulturist. Let 
us have more faith in the vitalizing and regenerating power 
of that "incorruptible seed" which it is our business to in- 
graft into the mind and heart of the child." — Bishop Clark. 
2. "Think again of the distinguished statesmen, lawyers, 
physicians, merchants, mechanics, ministers and missionaries 
who owe their eminence and usefulness to Sabbath school 
instruction. We need to trace the influence of these schools 
in quickening the whole church, and in opening wide and 
promising fields for all christian workers. We talk of reflex 
influences. Was there ever a more striking example of it 
than we have here ? Christians meet to teach children. 



17G The Methodist Armor. 

Their services are gratuitous and they look, perhaps, for a 
reward in heaven ; but God so orders events that they them- 
selves are taught. Agencies and influences surround them 
and press them in vast numbers to the Word of God, where 
their intellects are filled with divine truths, where they drink 
of the river of the water of life and are refreshed ; where 
they receive stimulus and strength to work for the Master. 
Since the introduction of the International Lessons, the 
Sunday school has become the greatest theological seminary 
in Christendom. 

3. Think of the hundreds of thousands of well-educated 
and pious men and women who are engaged every week in 
the careful study of God's holy Word, with the varied and 
abundant helps furnished by commentaries, and the exposi- 
tions and illustrations given in religious periodicals and 
newspapers ! Consider how their own minds are profited 
and enriched by these studies, and their hearts warmed by 
the simultaneous contemplation of the precious doctrines and 
glorious hopes that shine from the sacred page ! Before this 
great theological institution, every day becoming greater, in 
which God Himself is the teacher, and over which the Holy 
Spirit hovers, to answer the prayer from any lips, "Open 
Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of 
Thy law !" — before this institution, with its vast array of 
students, hungering and thirsting after knowledge and 
righteousness, I stand filled with admiration and with grati- 
tude to God. I see here a theological institute, capable of 
indefinite enlargement, with its doors open to all who will 
come in and sit at the feet of Jesus and learn of Him. 

4. As a missionary organization, the Sunday school has 
done a great work in establishing and sustaining schools in 
destitute localities and in remote regions, where it has 
kindled the first Gospel light and furnished the means for 



Methodism and Sunday Schools. 177 

the instruction of the ignorant and neglected classes. Its 
influence has been sensibly and extensively felt in foreign 
fields, through its contributions, its missionary bands, re- 
cently so largely increased, especially in the numerous and 
able missionaries whom it has raised up and sent forth to 
preach the Gospel." 

III. Sunday School Statistics. 

Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 

Schools organized 7,226 

Officers and Teachers 57,867 

Scholars 391,693 

Total .... 449,560 

Methodist Episcopal Church, North. 

Schools organized 19,904 

Officers and Teachers 212,442 

• Scholars 1,743,735 

Total 1,956,178 

"With the latest corrections applied the report of the 
Statistical Secretary presents the Sunday school army of the 
Unit 3d States and Canada thus : 

Total of schools 83,188 

Teachers and officers 894,793 

Scholars 6,843,997 

Total of teachers and scholars 7,738,790 
Of the above, the United States have, — 

Schools 77,793 

Teachers and officers 853,100 

Scholars 6,504,054 

Total of teachers and scholars 7,357,154 
And as many more in Great Britain and other countries. 



ITS' The Methodist Armor. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

METHODISM AND REVIVALS. 

The grand feature of Methodism is a revival of Scrip- 
tural Christianity. "Revivals are no mere incident of Meth- 
odism. It is itself a revival. The entire significance of it is 
given in that word. Methodism was not a revolution against 
existing ecclesiastical authority, nor against established doc- 
trines, but a revival of religion." — Bishop Marvin. 

I. What is a Revival ? 

It is a deep spiritual interest pervading a town or a 
neighborhood. It is an active, stirring excitement on the 
question of personal salvation. There are three states of 
men. There is the state of lukewarm ness, the state of serious 
attention, then an anxious state, saying : "What shall I do to 
be saved." When this state pervades a congregation, it is a 
revival of religion. The historv of the church is marked 
with periods of revivals — great divine freshets when the rains 
from heaven filled the ordinary channels fuller than they 
could hold, and they overflowed their banks and spread 
spiritual beauty and fertility on both sides clear down to the 
day of Pentecost, which was one of the grandest revivals on 
record. The genuineness of revivals is so clear and marked 
as to set aside the necessity of argument. "I believe in the 
existence of revivals of religion, as much as I believe in any 
other fact, either physical or moral." — Dr. Wayland. While 
the Methodist church is pre-eminently the church of revivals, 
yet nearly all the Protestant churches have more or less 
adopted the principle. The revival churches are the growing 
and spreading churches in our land. 



Methodism and Revivals. 179 

II. Benefits of Revivals. 

1. To promote the piety of the christians. — It is a great 
work to elevate the christian character of the members of the 
church to a higher plane, a nobler form of development. 
"Even if there were to be no in-gathering from the world, it 
is oftentimes that a "refreshing" grace (as it is called in the 
old-fashioned language) in the church is pre-eminently de- 
sirable, pre-eminently a blessing from God, though it may 
stop with the members of the church ; for our power is not 
numerical, but moral — it is not so much how many members 
we have in the church that determines its power, as it is the 
quality of that which we have. A church of twenty men 
who are eminent in grace and goodness is a larger church, if 
you measure size by power, than a church of 2,000 that are 
living a very low, wordly form of life. So that, when men 
in the church have been living in routine Christianity with- 
out any very active development of personal faith and the 
sweetness of the christian graces, it may oftentimes be the 
case that a revival of religion will be the Divine work in the 
church, and though many are not added to the church, the 
church itself is immensely strengthened ; its power is aug- 
mented ; so that while sometimes you shall find men ambi- 
tious of a large roll of members gathered in in the community, 
this is not the most important part, important as it is. It is 
still more important that in gathering in these men those 
that gather shall themselves be built up — shall themselves be 
developed and made more powerful." 

"A revival is the spring of religion, the renovation of 
life and gladness. It is the season in which young converts 
burst into existence and beautiful activity. The church 
resumes her toil and labor and care with freshness and 
energy. The air all around is balmy, and diffusing the 



180 The Methodist Armor. 

sweetest odors. The whole landscape teems with living 
promises of abundant harvest of righteousness and peace. It 
is the jubilee of holiness. A genial warmth pervades and 
refreshens the whole church. Showers of "vernal delight 
and joy" descend gently and copiously. Delightful in- 
fluences are wafted by every breeze." 

2. The Reclaiming of Backslidders. — One of the blessed 
results of a revival is to awaken and reclaim backslidders. 
There are hundreds and thousands in the church,. who are 
sunk down into a deep and fearful state of religious declen- 
sion. They are too far gone to be recovered by the ordinary 
means of grace. The only chance to lift them up from this 
gulf of declension is a flood of revival grace. Nothing less 
than the thunder of a religious storm will wake them up, 
and bring them to repentance and renewed obedience. A 
powerful revival will open their blind eyes and melt their 
hard marble hearts, and break the spell of sin, and save them. 

3. The Conversion of Sinners. — The immediate conver- 
sion of sinners is the leading idea of a revival. One of the 
most extraordinary elements of the Gospel is its power of 
suddenly transforming the souls of men. It is the power of 
God unto salvation to every one that believeth. 

"A gambler may cease in a moment to gamble and 
never touch again the instrument of deceit. A drunkard 
may in one single moment come to a purpose by which he 
shall never again touch the fatal cup. The effects of his 
past misconduct will not pass away at once, but the man has 
made a stand that will affect his whole character. 

A man may be pursuing lewd courses, he may be pur- 
suing a dissolute life, and in one single hour he may set the 
rudder so that his whole track after that will be upon a 
different line. The beginnings may be sudden, and it is the 
knowledge of this fact that there is a power by which men, 



Methodism and Revivals. 181 

not in single instances alone but in multitudes, that inspires 
us to work in revivals of religion. Men may be changed. 
We do not get up, therefore, a religious enthusiasm in a 
social form simply to enjoy ourselves and to exalt the feeling 
of the church, but we do it because in that heat which is 
generated vou can develop in wicked men a newness of life 

o «/ - J. 

which it would seem very difficult to develop under any 
other circumstances. This is the language of experience and 
observation, and not of theory." 

Look at the first great revival, that occurred on the day 
of Pentecost. Three thousand of hard hearted sinners were 
converted in one day. Who were they ? "Strangers" who 
had come from a distance to Jerusalem. ~No doubt but that 
they were men of spiritual ignorance and wicked lives. 
Paul, the blood-red persecutor, is struck down beneath the 
oufbursting splendor of Christ's manifested presence, and 
transformed into a flaming apostle. The Ethiopian eunuch 
riding in his chariot is changed suddenly, and "went on his 
way rejoicing." The publican sunk down beneath the 
mountain load of guilt, and cried "God be merciful to me a 
sinner." The burden rolled off, light flashed into his 
darkened mind, peace welled up in his heart, and "he Avent 
down to his house justified." The Phillippian jailer is sud- 
denly awakened to see his sinfulness and awful dangers, and 
then in a few moments he emerges from heathen darkness 
into the glorious light and liberty of the sons of God. 

"Xame any specific sin in the catalogue of heinous 
crimes, the forgiveness of which God has not illustrated in 
Biblical history : Xoah, the inebriate ; Abraham, the falsifier ; 
Moses, the son of ambition ; Aaron, the idolater ; Solomon, 
the libertine ; Manassah, the murderer ; Peter, the swearer ; 
David, the adulterer; the nameless robber of Calvaria; Paul, 
the persecutor, and fallen women, but represent tens of 



182 The Methodist Armor. 

thousands who have sung triumphantly : "0 God ! I will 

praise Thee ; for, though Thou wast angry with me, Thine 
anger is turned away, and Thou comfortest me !" 

Infidels, such as Newton, Rochester and Charney ; 
veteran sinners, such as Marcus Caius Victorius; savage 
chieftains, such as Africana ; pagan monarchs, such a Clovis 
and Constanftne, have found Christ's atonement ample for 
their salvation. Read Paul's array of sinful classes saved 
from among the Corinthians, as he enumerates them in the 
sixth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians. What a 
rich freight of cheer comes to unsaved men on the opening 
words of our text : "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall 
be forgiven unto men" !" 

4. The Conversion of Children. — Revivals are precious 
seasons for bringing in the children and young persons. 
And special pains should be taken to lead them to Christ. 
The young are the hope of the church. They will be its 
strong pillars when the fathers have passed away. They are 
soon to fill the pulpit and pews of the church. The glory of 
the future church will depend upon them. As the beauty of 
spring, the glory of summer, and the fruitfulness of the 
autumn depend upon the healthy buds and germs of the 
spring; so the power, excellency, efficiency, and fruitful- 
ness of the future church will depend upon the early con- 
version and thorough training of the children. And the 
church, that takes the best care of the lambs, will have the 
grandest flock feeding in the green pasture of Gospel grace. 
The church, that transplants the most of these immortal 
scions, will have the largest, most fragrant, and fruitful 
orchard. The church, that gets the most youthful recruits 
and trains and drills them well, will have the grandest, most 
aggressive, and effective army to conquer the world for Christ. 
Tt requires no prophetic vision to sec which denomination 



Methodism and Revivals. 183 

will be the greatest cliureli of the future in America. It will 
be that church, which is instrumental in converting the most 
children, and developing them into fruitful christians. Then 
work for the conversion of the children. Let there he no 
mock fear about them being too voung to be converted. 
There are very early conversions. 

5. Early Conversions. — Dr. Talmage says : It is some- 
times said that during revivals of religion great multitudes 
of children and young people are brought into the church, 
and they do not know what they are about. It has been my 
observation that the earlier people come into the kingdom 
of God the more useful they are. 

Robert Hall, the prince of Baptist preachers, was con- 
verted at twelve years of age. It is supposed he knew what 
he was abo.ut. Matthew Henry, the commentator, who did 
more than any man of his century for increasing the interest 
in the study of the Scriptures, was converted at eleven years 
of age ; Isabella Graham, immortal in the Christian Church, 
was converted at ten years of age ; Dr. Watts, whpse hymns 
will be sung all down the ages, was converted at nine vears 
of age ; Jonathan Edwards, perhaps the mightiest intellect 
that the American pulpit ever produced, was converted at 
seven years of age ; and that father and mother take an awful 
responsibility when they tell their child at seven years of 
age, "You are too young to be a christian," or, "You are 
t >o young to connect yourself witli the church." That is 
a mistake as long as eternity. 

If during a revival two persons present themselves as 
candidates for the church, and the one is ten years of age 
and tli3 other is fo^iy years of age, I will hive more confi- 
dence in the profession of religion of the one ten years of age 
than the one forty years of age. Why ? The one who pro- 
fesses at forty years of age has forty years of impulse in the 



184 The Methodist Armor. 

wrong direction to correct, the child has only ten years in the 
wrong direction to correct. Four times ten are forty. Four 
times the religious prospect for the lad that comes into the 
kingdom of God, and into the church at ten years of age 
than the man at forty. 

We may add that it is stated that Bishop Ashury was 
converted at thirteen, Bishop Roberts at ten, Dr. Benson at 
sixteen, while Richard Baxter, and Bishop Andrew were so 
taught that they never knew the exact time of their conversion. 

Children are converted, just as adults are converted. 
The child is the father of the man. The nearer we are to 
the birth the nearer we are to the new birth. The oldest, 
the wisest, has to enter the kingdom of Christ as a child. 
Every child old enough to sin is old enough to repent and 
believe. Then again, how much easier it is to get children 
converted than old, hard-hearted sinners. It is easy to turn 
the lamb while gentle into the pasture, but when it grows 
up to be an old sheep and wanders far away upon the bleak 
mountains of sin, becomes wild and shy, how difficult the 
work of hunting it up and driving it back to the gate where 
it stood when a gentle lamb. And when put into the fold, 
its bad habits render it liable to leave the fold and go back 
to its old haunts. The application is easy. The child is the 
gentle lamb, that can be easily turned in through the gate of 
conversion into the green pastures of the church. The wild 
sheep is the child neglected till it wanders oil', contracts the 
bad habits of drinking, swearing, unbelief, and other sins, 
which render his conversion difficult. 

Two men have nurseries. The wise man takes up a 
hundred scions while small, transplants them into a fertile 
and well prepared soil. They take root and grow up in'; > 
symmetrical trees, which flourish and bear much fruit. He 
has a beautiful, fragrant, fruitful orchard. The foolish man 



Methodism and Revivals. 185 

lets his scions alone. They grow up into scraggy trees. 
They must be transplanted or be destroyed. Now, he com- 
mences the work of transplanting. They have grown old, 
heavy, deeply rootod in the soil. What labor to dig around 
and around, to prise and heave, in order to get them up. 
Then he must work almost as hard in digging deep holes 
where they are to be planted. He must lop off many limbs 
and plant carefully, fertilize well, and then probably half of 
them will wither and die after all of his hard labor. The 
wise man represents the preacher laboring for the conversion 
of the children. The foolish man represents the preacher, 
who neglects the children till they grow up into habits of 
sinfulness, and then works for their conversion. This whole 
country is tull of old sinners, who stand as old scrubby oaks 
in the forest of wickedness. Will the}- ever be transplanted 
into the garden of the Lord and become "trees of righteous- 
ness ?" Will the millions of heathen rooted in the soil of 
superstition ever be transplanted by a handful of missionaries? 
This world can't be converted by the old process of trans- 
planting grown trees. ~No, never. The church must begin 
at the craddle — must transplant the millions of the world, 
while they are tender, growing plants. 

III. The Agencies to be used in Securing a Revival. 

1. Cne of the most effective and reliable means is the faithful 
preaching of the Divine truth. It should be adapted to pro- 
dace the result desired : 

(1). Such preaching as will convince the judgment. — "Know- 
ing the terrors of the law," said Paul, "we persuade men." 
It was the compulsion of persuasion which the Savior en- 
joined upon his disciples as a means of inducing men to come 
i;i, that his Father's house might be filled. Hence the con- 
trol of attention and the impartation of instruction, however 



186 The Methodist Armor. 

important of themselves, are nevertheless to he regarded as 
means to the higher end of convincing men of spiritual truth 
and religious duty. As God has implanted reasoning facul- 
ties in every mind, it is the preacher's duty to bring christian 
truth within the action of those faculties, so that they may 
he enlisted in its reception and study. To this end he must 
he a lover of truth, and must illustrate its influnce, not only 
in his life, hut in his modes of reasoning. No mental reser- 
vations must he allowed to underlie his statements, no covert 
sophistries to impeach his candor, and no evasions to betray 
his lack of confidence in the truths he assumes to utter. 
His motto must be, "Having believed, therefore do I speak," 
and in showing forth the reasons for the faith that is in him, 
he will not fail to persuade others also. 

(2). The Preaching should arouse the Conscience. — It was 
especially designed to reach and quicken that silent and often 
silenced monitor of every breast, which, however averse its 
possessor may be, seldom fails to respond to earnest reason- 
ing in "temperance, righteousness, and a judgment to come." 
Powerless and valueless for true religious effect are those 
sermons which awaken no echoes in the chambers of con- 
science. Whereas the faithful word which startles into 
action a dormant consciousness of guilt before God, and 
confronts a careless soul with its own shortcomings and their 
consequences, is of priceless value in the moral history of 
that soul. When the conscience is properly aroused, it be- 
comes an auxiliary of untold power to aid the preacher in his 
further work. It supplies the listening car, the tender heart, 
and the consenting will. Thus it is that through the office 
of preaching God works within men "to will and to do of 
his own good pleasure," and yet in perfect harmony with 
their individual freedom of choice and action. 

(3). The Preaching should melt the Sensibilities. — As man 



Methodism and Revivals. 187 

embraces in his nature the most varied powers and suscepti- 
bilities, so preaching was designed to address and influence 
every faculty of his being. Intensely fallacious, therefore, is 
the theory of some that preaching should only address the 
judgment. That indeed is to be done in a manly and faith- 
ful manner; but the more delicate task of warming the heart 
and kindling the emotions is not to be left undone. For this 
there is no power equal to a right exercise and an unaffected 
expression of the religious affections. How true is the classic 
precept of Horace, "Weep yourself if you would see others 
weep," compared with the heart utterances of the Hebrew 
prophets and psalmist. Listen to Jeremiah as he exclaims, 
"Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of 
tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the 
daughter of my people !" Also Daniel when he said "They 
that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and 
weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again 
with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." The preach- 
er who cherishes or illustrates a cold, unsympathetic nature, 
or whose ideas of propriety would repress every emotion that 
does not freeze in its utterance, is a poor representative of 
him who shed tears over Jerusalem and who wept at the 
grave of Lazarus. If "love is the fulfilling of the law," and 
if "christian faith works by love and purines the heart," 
then let no preacher of the Gospel fear or fail to cherish a 
c msuminff love for his fellow-men, and to imbue his messages 
with a warmth of sentiment which will soften frigid hearts 
and melt down the obduracy of impenitence. Well has it 
been said that he who loves most will preach best. 

(4). The great End, Aim, and Result of the Treaehivg 
should be to lead Sinners to the Savior. — All other elements 
focalize in this. Hence, whether by instruction, persuasion, 
conviction, or entreaty, or by all combined, the preacher 



188 The Methodist Armor. 

must by all means strive to save men. Hence also that 
method, or combination of methods, which will save most is 
without question the best. At this point the controlling 
purpose of the preacher will greatly influence the character 
of his preaching. Moral and spiritual results rarely ensue 
by accident. The laws of intellectual and spiritual influence 
are not less positive than those which govern matter. He 
that would preach the gospel for the glory of God and the 
salvation of men must study those laws and avail himself of 
their power. Of all the good gifts which it is permitted men 
to covet, that of winning souls is the greatest. For the 
attainment of this it is the privilege of every minister of the 
Lord Jesus to toil with a holy ambition and to pray with an 
unwavering faith, relying upon the promised aid of the Hol} r 
Ghost. For this he should account no labor irksome, no 
study hard, no experiment profitless. For this even failures 
may become to him lessons of help and sacrifices, the source 
of glorious rewards. A ministry that is not crowned with 
the result of soul-saving, however it may win human applause 
or snuff the incense of admiration, is poor indeed ! Whereas 
he that is blessed of God in using the appointed means of 
converting sinners from the errors of their ways enjoys a 
privilege that angels might covet." 

2. Praying for the Unction of the Holy Ghost. — "All re- 
vivals are the work of the Holy Spirit. They are never 
manipulated into existence. When religion is revived G,>d 
<lo3s it. Nothing can substitute the divine pi\seneo ar.d 
power. The "times of refreshing" are "from the presence of 
the Lord." But God always works among men through 
human media, so that while "the power is of God," tw it 
worketh mightily in" his people." — Bishop Marvin. And as 
the power of developing and carrying on a revival is the 
Holy Spirit, the disciples were commanded to tarry at 



Methodism and Revivals. 189 

Jerusalem till that power came. a Ye shall receive power 
after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." The power' 
that leads men to Christ, is not the power of eloquence. The 
power of eloquence may move and burn, hut it cannot 
regenerate the soul of man. The cold moon light of human 
eloquence can never melt down the icebergs of sin. It will 
take the summer beams of the Holy Spirit to do that. 

Neither is it the 'power of logic. Mere argument cannot 
convert a soul. You have seen sheet-lightning how it flashes 
and dazzles but it never wields the bolt that smites and kills. 
Cold logic is the mere sheet-lightning. It is the lire of the 
Holy Ghost, that smites sinners, and converts their souls. 

"Xow, it was just exactly that mood of the higher facul- 
ties which came to the apostles after Christ's ascension, when 
the Holy Ghost descended upon them. It is precisely that 
faith which is produced upon God's people now when the 
Holy Ghost descends into their hearts. There is not an ex- 
plainable personality, there is not an explicable influence ; 
but there is the witness from as;e to asre of thrice ten thousand 
iii every generation, that it is best for men so to hold their 
souls that they shall be filled with the divine enthusiasm ; 
that it is a divine enthusiasm which in the main manifests 
itself by giving tone and electric or niao-ic power to the 
higher moral and spiritual sentiments in the human soul. 
And it is exactly that part of the mind which is ordinarily 
capable of being the most efficacious upon others. Xo man 
inspires faith in his fellow-men who has not faith himself; 
no man inspires w r armth in them who has not warmth him- 
self; no man inspires enthusiasm in them who does not 
generate enthusiasm in his own soul. And to do this trans- 
cends nature. In order to do this, we need to have the 
divine innuense exerted upon our souls. And it is for this 
that the truth of the divine Spirit is revealed. It is dis- 



190 The Methodist Armor. 

tinetively peculiar; it was known among the prophets under 
the old dispensation ; it became the possession or right of the 
■whole brotherhood of men under the new dispensation ; and 
it is possible for men to live in such a light, in such a warmth, 
and so under the stimulating influence of the Spirit of God, 
that the higher part of their nature shall be constantly in an 
inocuous state, warming, and lighting, and blessing men. 

Now, in this higher condition of the nobler faculties, 
more than in any other condition, we lose the fear of men, 
and escape from that bias and damaging influence which 
comes in through the love of approbation. We love the 
praise of God more than the praise of men. Therefore we 
are lifted up above a thousand temptations and infelicities — 
above the currents which blow close down to the earth — the 
"land currents," as they are called." 

In laboring for a revival, nothing is so important as 
earnest, persevering and believing prayer. There must be 
private and public prayer. The preachers and the people 
must pray mightily for the outpouring of the Spirit. For 
our encouragement, we are told by the Master "that God 
loves to give good gifts to his children that ask him, more 
than parents love to give bread to their children. He 
challenges us. He says, "If ye, being evil, know how to give 
good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your 
Father which is. in heaven !" That is, how much more shall 
One who is not evil, who is not narrow, who is not ignorant, 
who is not imperfect ; how much more shall the wisdom and 
goodness of the Father in heaven do for men, than the erring 
affection and limited wisdom of earthly parents do for their 
children ! God's bounty is universal, unquestionable ; and 
nothing pleases God so much as that we should draw upon 
him. "It is more blessed to give than to receive" — so said 
Christ. He said so'because he felt it. He said so because it 



Methodism and Revivals. 191 

was true of the eternal Father. The happiness of God comes 
from this — that he is eternally pouring out from himself. 
He loves to give, and rejoices to give. 

If, then, you need consolation, enlightenment, power, 
enthusiasm, joy in the Holy Ghost, it is to he sought. It is 
not to he purchased hy lahor pains, hy penalties, or hy tasks, 
it is to he received. It comes as the dew comes. It falls as 
the rain falls. It streams abroad as the light streams abroad. 
It is that which God loves to give, that which you need to 
receive, and that which every man should seek and should 
take." 

When the preacher is baptized with the Holy Ghost, 
his sermon will move the people. 

"He will preach as though he ne'er should preach again, 

And as a dying man to dying men." 

IY. The Co-operation of the People with the Preachers. 

On this point, Mr. Moody has some very practical and 
useful remarks. He says : "There are three classes in the 
church. First, the formalists, who criticise. They say we 
can have nothing to do with these evangelists ; we must 
maintain dignity and order in our services. These are the 
same class of people who cried out, "Crucify Him; crucify 
Him." They resented the preaching of the JSTazarene, and 
they objected to His unorthodox sermons, and the crowds 
who followed Him about, and his ignorant disciples who 
were not of the scribes and Pharisees. 

Then there are the sponges. They take all the comfort 
they can get, but give out nothing. They are going ti 
meetings all the time, listening to sermons, but you can 
never get them to work. They do not teach in our Sunday- 
schools, they will not visit the sick. 

The third is the class we want — the Christian workers. 
All the while the minister is preaching they are praying for 



192 The Methodist Armor. 

the Spirit of God to carry the truth to the hearts of sinners. 
After the service they are looking out for some one to speak 
to and to make a personal appeal. A minister who has a 
hundred such workers in his congregation will revolutionize 
the part of the city he works in. The trouble is not so much 
in getting men to hear the Gospel as in getting men to work. 

We hear much of those who show zeal without knowl- 
edge, hut I had a thousand times rather have zeal without 
knowledge than knowledge without zeal. AVe must learn 
never to despise the weakest workers in the Master's service. 
God chooses the weak things ; God uses the foolish things. 
We want to hrve the wise and the strong, and we are not 
content to follow God's plan, for God often passes over the 
wise. 

If you had asked the men of other days who were the 
great men of the time, they would not have pointed you to 
John Banyan or to Luther, to Abraham, to Enoch, or to 
^sToah. John Banyan got shut up in Bedford gaol, but the 
devil found his match when he laid John Bunyan up there. 
We should never have had the "Pilgrim's Progress" if it had 
not been that John Bunyan had leisure in his cell to write 
his wonderful dream. 

The millionaires are not the workers in the church ; 
God passes by them. If they are converted they are not 
used; God passes them by, and takes up some poor tramp. 
Even Paul said his strength lay in his great weakness. 

To arouse the Christian Church to a sense of its duty 
and to induce christian men to go out and work for their 
Master, is one of the highest missions open to man. An 
anxious church is sure to bring anxious inquirers, but a cold 
and dead church is dead for the work of the Lord. 

Very few men are concerted under sermons : I have 
hardly ever met one who was. Men are awakened under a 



Methodism and Revivals. 193 

sermon, and then is the time for the christian to speak, to 
plead, and to pray until the anxious soul finds peace. Do 
not forget that the precious, the useful work, often begins 
when the sermon is just over. I believe the usefulness of 
many a sermon has been lost altogether by the congregation 
getting up directly it was over and beginning to talk about 
worldly matters. There has not been that support, that 
holding up of the hands of the ministry by the church that 
there ousdrt to be and used to be." 

Y. The Transcendent importance of Revivals. 

"God calls us to the work of leading sinners to Christ. 
Inspiration tells us that "He who converteth a sinner from 
the error of his way shall save a soul from death and hide a 
multitude of sins." God saves men through human agency. 
Men perish through human neglect of duty. 

See the apostles as they toil for souls ! Over Syrian 
deserts, through the storms of the sea, in pestilential climes, 
amid hunger and thirst and persecution, they hurried to tell' 
dying men of Jesus. And multitudes, yearning for souls, 
have trodden in their footsteps. Brainerd and Elliott, Lati- 
mer and Baxter, Berridge and Venn, Whitefield and Wesley, 
how these have talked with seraph tongues and labored with 
apostolic zeal for Christ ! "Were the whole church thus 
consecrated to the salvation of men the coming century 
would inaugurate that colossal concert of angels at which 
John represents them as leading, and universal humanity 
thundering the chorus, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain 
to receive honor and glory and blessing ; and every creature 
which is in heaven and on the earth heard T saying, Blessing 
and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth 
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever.' " 



194 The Methodist Armor. 

VI. Hindrances to a Revival. 

The following conclusions are the result of the experi- 
ence and observation of a very eminent revivalist : 

1. A revival will stop when the church believes it is going 
to stop. 

2. A revival will cease when Christians consent that it 
should cease. 

3. A revival will cease whenever Christians become me- 
dian ical in their attempts to promote it. 

4. It will cease whenever Christians get the idea that the 
work will go on without their aid. 

5. When Christians get proud of their great revival it will 
cease. 

6. It will stop when the church gets exhausted, by labor. 

7. When the church begins to speculate about abstract 
doctrines. 

8. When Christians begin to proselyte. 

9. When Christians refuse to render unto the Lord accord- 
. ing to the benefits received. 

10. When "Christians grieve the Holy Spirit by ceasing to 
depend upon it. 

11. When Christians lose the spirit of brotherly love. 

12. A revival will decline and cease unless Christians 
are frequently reconverted. 

13. It will' cease when the church ceases to denounce and 
oppose public evils. 



Methodism and Missions. 195 



CHAPTER XVII. 
METHODISM AND MISSIONS. 

I. The Genius of Methodism is Missionary. 

"The Methodist Episcopal Church is most thoroughly 
committed to the cause of christian missions. Begotten 
herself of a most important missionary enterprise, horn and 
nurtured in the spirit of an intense evangelism, her course 
for the century has heen one of unceasing evangelistic ag- 
gression. The records of her earliest history hear testimony 
to the self-sacrificing zeal of her preachers in pushing them- 
selves out to the very "borders of civilization, keeping them- 
selves quite ahreast of the most advanced tide of population 
as it flowed onward, sharing joyfully the hardships of the 
pioneer people, if by all means they might save some, and 
plant among them the institutions of the Gospel. 

The missionary work, thus begun and carried forward 
under the personal supervision of Bishop Asbury, soon grew 
to such proportions as to suggest, and, indeed, to require, a 
special and formal organization for this sort of church work ; 
and so, following the clearest dictates of duty, the Missionary 
Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church was formed. 
This. Society, in the scope of its spirit and purpose, proposes 
to be nothing more, and surely it ought to be nothing less, 
than the whole church in missionary action. Since its or- 
ganization, the church, through her missionary operations, 
has spread herself all over this land, and, overleaping its 
limits, has gone to Mexico, to South America, to Africa, to 
Europe, to Asia, and to-day her mission-fields "girdle the 
globe, and her morning doxologies to Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, keep pace with the hours ami the journeys ot the sun." 



19G The Methodist Armor. 

II. Facts that should stir our Missionary Zeal and Fire 
our Hearts in the Great Work. 

1. "The first fact that confronts us in connection with 
tins theme is this : Christianity is in the minority. After 
eighteen centuries of evangelizing, it is out- voted by heathen- 
ism almost three to one. There are vast regions yet un- 
touched by the gospel plowshare. On this continent, where 
we boast the best civilization, away to the north natives sit 
in their ice caves, wrapped in furs and feeding on oil, into 
whose huts not one ray from the Sun of righteousness has 
penetrated. A few villages have been turned into mission 
stations, but the great tribes are uncalled. Swing clown 
through the north-west belt, and through the great valley, 
and by the coast ; the mass of the people are in deep pagan- 
ism. The painted warrior follows the bloody trail, and 
measures his greatness by the number of his scalps. Drop 
down through the vast regions of the Gulf, cross the Isthmus, 
plunge on into the kingdoms and republics of South America, 
and over this great stretch you find a kind of religion that 
has lost out of it every thing but its heathenism, and that 
now stands as the mortal enemy of civilization, and a bar 
against the kingdom of Christ. What do we find in Africa ? 
Here and there a mission-house ; now and then a weary 
evangelist ; but the millions sit in a darkness by which their 
own complexion pales. Pass over into Asia, crowd through 
the millions who folllow the False Prophet, ascend the Ural 
Mountains, look down upon half the human race in idolatry 
and lust ; then you will understand that the work is not all 
done." 

2. "Another fact arresting attention is this : There is 
universal need of salvation. The heathen, like ourselves, need 
to be saved. They are lost, and need a Saviour. We are 



Methodism and Missions. 197 

wont to look at the physical condition of the heathen*, and to 
exhaust our sympathies over their low-grade comforts. This 
state is had enough to stir every heart. Think of a land like 
China, where there has not "been a bridge or a road made for 
twenty centuries ; where there is not a spring wagon, nor a 
mile of railroad, nor a yard of telegraph, in the whole empire. 
Think of this people living in their cities with the streets six 
feet wide and the avenues twelve. The sewer in the streets 
is piled up against the one-story buildings, (they have no 
other, except the Government buildings,) on one side of the 
street to the very eaves. In the avenues it is ricked up in 
the middle of the street, ten or twelve feet high. This rick 
is the accumulated filth often or fifteen centuries. At night 
they water their streets with the filthy water from their filthy 
homes. The stench is beyond description. A glue-factory 
would be a deodorizer in a heathen city. 

The terrors and torments of their minds far exceed the 
perils or exposures of their bodies. They are plagued by 
superstitions, and robbed by priests, and murdered by mag- 
istrates, and enslaved by rulers. In China they have vast, 
healthful, productive regions almost unoccupied, while the 
people swarm in about the ancient centers, not daring to 
move away lest they offend the spirits of their ancestors. 
They have great deposits of coal, and mines of the precious 
metals, but they dare not touch them lest they offend the 
spirits of the mighty dead. This fear has filled China with 
portions of stone walls, from the great wall of the empire to 
the fragments just long enough to enable a man to cower 
behind them. These walls are theological, not political or 
military. The people believe that the spirits of the dead are 
blind, and that, when enraged, they dash at a mortal. If he 
can hide behind a wall the spirit dashes its head against the 
wall, and fi ills down senseless. When it recovers it has for- 



198 The Methodist Armor. 

gotten Its wrath. Thus China is filled with walls, and the 
people are pursued and tormented with perpetual fears. 

In India their case is no better. Their cruel deities 
demand blood as the price of peace. Infants and women 
and self-sentenced men are sacrificed. The natural affections 
of the heart are prevented." 

. 8. " The great law of divine action makes human inirumental- 
it>j a, necessary part of the redemptive plan. He works with us, 
not without us. I cannot say what God could have done ; 
I do not know ; but I can tell some of the things that he has 
done. He has ordained human agency as the way of carry- 
ing forward his work. He never advances an inch without 
our co-operation. This is a universal law. All results in 
society and life require both human and divine factors. God 
loves us infinitely. I cannot think of him as out of love. 
He seeks necessarily, all the time, by all possible means, to 
bring men out of their sins. Any letting up, even for a mo- 
ment, would come short of the dictates of infinite love. The 
remitted effort might have achieved success and salvation. 
If God could have his way, every poor sinner on earth would 
be saved before to-morrow's sun shall rise. If God could 
have his way, every prison pen in the universe would be 
thrown open, and every sorrowing sinner would be loved up 
into purity and peace. But in the way of these results stand 
the order of human agencies, and the power of the human 
will. Thus God waits upon our slow movement. He is 
estopped from remitting his experiments with remedial 
agencies by the love that caused our creation, and he i^ 
estopped from the use of his omnipotence by the freedom he 
has vouchsafed to every moral agent. Thus the world's 
salvation awaits our action, 

The salvation of the world is now reduced to a question 
of money. If christian people will so wind the parchment 



Methodism and Missions. 199 

of their creed about the cross as to make a divine dollar 
mark, (8,) God's kingdom will be upon us in the next decade. 
Talk about ability ! We have money enough, if we only had 
availability. The interest on what we spent in our war would 
put a missionary in the field for every eight hundred heathen, 
and this interest would keep him there forever. God lacks 
no love. Christ has died. The Holy Ghost has been shed 
forth upon us. All lands are open ; all peoples are inviting; 
all languages are mastered. The church has all necessary 
experience of personal pardon and free grace. The old 
errors of fatalism are sifted out of the faith of the church. 
The Gospel is restored to its early purity. All things are 
now ready. Over the gate of the future it blazes the dollar 
mark, while God says, "By this conquer." 

Brothers, with our treasure consecrated the world is our easy 
'prize. I want to see all the kingdoms of the earth given to 
our God and to his Christ ; and I expect to see it done in my 
day, if I am permitted to work as long in the vineyard as I 
desire to. If the Methodist Church would take hold of this 
with the old battle-cry, u No matter what it costs in men ami 
money, this must be done," the world would be startled from 
the sleep of the age, and nations would be born in a day." 

III. Statistics — Gexeral Creeds of the "World. 

The population of the world is religiously distributed in 
the following proportions : 

1. Professors of Christianity 418,000,900 

2. Of Buddhism 400,000,000 

3. Mohammedanism '.- . 215,000,000- 

4. Brahmanism 175,000,000 

5. Judaism 7,000,000 

6. All other forms of religious belief .... 174,000,000 



200 The Methodist Armor. 

The results of Missionary labors among all the churches : 



Communicants. 

India 87,854 

China 15,237 

Ceylon 7,490 

Burmah 20,811 

Persia 1,211 

Japan 2,000 

Sumatra 2,420 

Turkish Empire . . . 9,132 



Communicants. 

Madagascar 68,317 

West Africa 25,636 

South Sea Islands .... 55,378 

Sandwich Island .... 14,976 

Australia & New Zealand 2,512 

American Indians .... 17,142 

The New Hebrides .... 1,820 

South Africa 57,810 



The above figures taken from Bishop Hurst's Outline 
of Church History. 



CHAPTER XVTIL 
METHODISM AND ED UCA TION. 

Methodism has not neglected the important work of 
educating her followers. The charge that the Methodist 
church was founded in ignorance — that uncultivated people 
only joined her communion — that illiterate ministers preached 
in her pulpits — has no foundation in truth. 

John Wesley, her founder, was educated at one of the 
most famous institutions of learning known in the world. 
He was a man of superior mental culture. Charles Wesley, 
whose heaven-inspired hymns are sung in all the churches ; 
John Fletcher, whose ponderous battle-ax of logic well nigh 
demolished the iron system of Calvinism ; Adam Clarke, 
who was called a walking encyclopedia; Richard Watson, 
whose intellectual greatness is seen in his "Theological In- 
stitutes," are all shining monuments of educated mind. In 
America, the Methodist church can show as many well 
cultured intellects as any other denomination. Mr. Wesley 
early began to organize schools among his people. These 
schools have expanded and multiplied into colleges, theologi- 
cal schools, and academic institutions of every grade. Every 



Methodism and Education 201 

Methodist body in England and America, recognizes the 
duty of providing schools for the education of the people. 
"Edward Everett, in his day, said that there was no church 
in the United States, so successfullv en^a^ed in the cause of 
education as the Methodist church." The Methodist church, 
Xorth, "can point to her twenty-seven colleges and theologi- 
cal seminaries erected and endowed at a cost of S3, 100, 000 ; 
her eighty-four academies, seminaries, and female colleges, 
with her regiment of eight hundred professors and teachers, 
and her army corps of 25,500 students marching up the 
highway of intelligence and virtue, and ere long to occupy 
the posts of influence and power." 

The Southern Methodist Almanac says : "The interests 
of education have been greatly promoted of late in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The General Confer- 
ence of 1878 was not able to present a complete list of the 
institutions of learning under the care of the church; but in 
the Journal of the General Conference is published a tabular 
statement of ninety-live institutions — with their grade, loca- 
tion, when founded, by whom chartered, names of presidents, 
number and names of instructors, number of students, value 
of property, volumes in library, endowment, and times of 
Commencement. The Conference resolved, 'That we recog- 
nize the hand of a precious Providence in the magnificent 
gift which established and endowed Yanderbilt University, 
and rejoice to hear that it has already entered upon its field 
of extensive and rapidly-increasing usefulness.' " 

General Educational Statistics. 

Number of instructors and students in Universities and 
Colleges of the United States by religious denomination-, as 
reported by United States Commissioner of Education for 

1878. 



202 The Methodist Arm an. 



DE NOM I N ATIONS. 


Institutions 


Instriu 


•tors. Studei 


Roman Catholic 


49 


733 


7,851 


Methodist 


50 


499 


8,930 


Baptist 


40 


299 


5,085 


Presbyterian 


35 


335 


5,088 


Congregational 


20 


239 


3,878 


Lutheran 


16 


127 


2,073 


Christian 


14 


112 


2,043 


Protestant Episcopal 


11 


127 


911 


Reformed 


7 


68 


764 


United Brethren 


7 


46 


1,040 


Friends 


6 


50 


780 


Universalist 


5 


62 


394 


Seventh Day Advent. 


1 


15 


281 


Jewish 


1 


4 


•24 


New Church 


1 


6 


41 


Non-sectarian 


78 


1,021 


16,302 


Not Reporting 


10 


36 


514 


Additional, hut not 








reporting 


27 







Grand total 378 3,759 56,035 

Of the 351 Colleges and Universities reported the average 
number of instructors for each was 10.7, and the average 
number of students was 169.6. 

Most of the number of non-sectarian Colleges and Uni- 
versities were founded under religious influence, and include- 
religious teachers in their Board of Instruction. 

Over nine-tenths of all the Colleges and Universities in the 
United States are under positive Christian supervision. 

Infidelity has not sustained a single College or Uni- 
versity in the United States. 

There is not a single flourishing State University not 
under the supervision of religious instructors. 



Organization of the M. E. Church, South. 203 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL 
CHURCH, SOUTH 

1844. "The Plan of Separation" between the Northern 
and Southern Methodists was agreed upon. The General 
Conference met in New York on the first of May. The 
feelings on the slavery question quite stormy. Bishop 
Andrew having become connected with slavery by marriage, 
was censured by a resolution requiring him to "desist from 
the exercise of his office so long as this impediment remains." 
Passed hy majority of 110 to 68. There being no possibility 
of reconciliation, "The Plan of Separation" was adopted by 
a large majority. 

1845. The Convention composed of delegates from 
fourteen Southern Conferences met in Louisville, Ky., on 
the first of May. It was presided over by Bishops Soule 
and Andrew. The Convention proceeded to organize "The 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South," as an independent 
Branch of Christ's church. The doctrines of Arminianism, 
the peculiar usages, and Discipline of Methodism, and 
ecclesiastical polity, remain about the same in both churches. 

1846. The first General Conference of M. E. Church, 
South, met in Petersburgh, Va., in May. William Capers 
and Robert Paine elected Bishops. From this time on Our 
General Conference has met quadrennially. The Northern 
church refusing to divide the property of the Book Concern 
in pro rata proportion, a suit was commenced in the United 
States Court, which was finally decided in favor of the church 
South. The court decided that the ministers of the South 
had vested rights in the profits of the Book establishment, 



204 The Methodist Armor. 

and by this decision the church South held the printing 
establishments of Richmond, Charleston, and Nashville. 
The debts due from persons residing within thedimits of the 
Southern Conferences, and two hundred and seventy thou- 
sand dollars in cash were paid to the M. E. Church, South. 
186G. The General Conference adopted a system of lay 
delegation both in the General and Annual Conferences. 
The probationary period of members was abolished, and the 
rule on class-meetings made voluntary instead of being com- 
pulsory. The M. E. Church, South has prosecuted its work 
vigorously throughout its bounds, and its statistical tables 
show a rapid and steady increase in all the departments of 
church work. 

Bishops of the M. E. Church, South. 

The following admirable sketches of our living Bishops 
were published in Harper s Weekly, June 3, 1882 : 

Bishop Robert Paine, P. !>., the senior Bishop, is in 
his eighty-third year, and has been quite effective until with- 
in a year or two. He was born in North Carolina, Novem- 
ber 12, 1799, but settled in his youth in Tennessee. In 1818 
he was admitted into the Tennessee Conference, and soon 
took rank, tilling prominent appointments until '1830, when 
he was elected President of La Grange College, Alabama. 
There he remained seventeen years, until the first General 
Conference of the new Church South, in 1846, when he was 
elevated to the episcopacy. He had been a member of the 
General Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church live 
times, until the separation in 1844, owing to the action 
against Bishop Andrew. He was chairman of the Commit- 
tee of Nine, whose report forms a memorable chapter in 
Methodist history. lie was a member of the Louisville 
Convention in 184 3, and at the first General Conference, in 



Organization of the M. E. Church, South. 205 

1846, he was elected Bishop, and became the colleague of 
Bishop? Soule and Andrew, formerly of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. The Bishop presides with much dignity, is 
prompt, firm, and genial. Until recently his health has been 
remarkable, enabling him to do full episcopal work in pre- 
siding at Annual and District Conferences. lie now resides 
at Aberdeen, Mississippi. His Life and Times of Bishop 
McKendree, one of the earliest bishops, and colleague of 
Asbury, has proved a valuable contribution to Methodist 
history. He is now writing Notes of his Life, which will soon 
appear in book form. He is of medium height and sunny 
countenance. 

Bishop George Fostek Pierce, D. I)., son of the late 
venerable and distinguished Dr. Lovick Pierce, is the next 
in seniority since the deaths of Bishops Soule, Capers, 
Bascom, Early, and Andrew. He was born in Greene 
county, Georgia, February 3, 1811, and resides near Sparta, 
in that State. He designed in his youth to enter the pro- 
fession of law, but turned from his studies, and in his 
twentieth year was admitted into the Georgia Conference. 
Possessed of superior pulpit abilities, as well as scholarly 
attainments, he commanded prominence in South Carolina 
and Georgia. He was prominent in the General Conference 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844, although a young 
man, in sustaining the Southern view of the question at issue. 
He was also a member of the Louisville Convention in 1845, 
and of the General Conference of the Church" South m 1846. 
In 1848 he was elected President of Emory college, and held 
the position until 1854, when he was elevated to the episco- 
pacy. He is still a royal preacher, but unable from thr 
trouble to preach often. Very refined and courtly in his 
manners, scholarly, and of aristocratic carriage; tall without 
b^ing portly; gentlemanly in drc h piercing eyes, and 



20G The Methodist Armor. 

a benign countenance. The principal work from his pen is 
entitled Incidents of Western Travel. lie has written much 
and well on education and church topics for the church press. 

Bishop Hubbard Hinde Kavanaugh, D. D., was born 
in Clark county, Kentucky, in 1802, and in his boyhood re- 
ceived his first training as a printer. Converted in his 
sixteenth year, live years afterward he was received into the 
Kentucky Conference, and from that time until the present, 
fifty-nine years, he has been effective. Possessing great 
physical endurance and superior pulpit talents, his ministry 
has been one of wonderful success both in the pastorate and 
episcopate. He has recently returned from California and 
Oregon, where he spent a year, preaching with the same 
power as in his younger years. In 1854 he was elected 
Bishop, and was among the first to cultivate fraternal feelings 
toward the Methodist Episcopal Church. His visit to Round 
Lake, Sea Cliff, and other points in the North, in the inter- 
est of fraternity, was a source of satisfaction in the wide 
domain of Methodism. Though eighty years of age, he is 
still an untiring and successful worker, not only in the local 
church work in and near Louisville, Kentucky, his residence, 
but in the church generally. He gives but little evidence of 
his great age. He has a heavy suit of black hair, silvered a 
little with gray ; is stalwart in frame, with a patriarchal 
bearing, full habit, small piercing eyes, and pleasant 
countenance. 

Bishop Holland Nimmous McTyetre, D. D., was born 
in Barnwell county, South Carolina, July 28, 1824, and en- 
tered the ministry of the Virginia Conference in 1845; but 
his line talents brought early promotion, and he was trans- 
ferred to the extreme South, and filled important appoint- 
ments in Mobile and New Orleans. While in the latter city 
the New Orleans Christian Advocate was started by a com- 



Organization of the M. E. Church, South. 207 

mittee in 1851, Rev. II. 2sT. McTyeire, editor, and brought 
oat the first number February 10. At the General Confer- 
ence of 1854 the paper was received by that body as one of 
the official church organs, and Dr. McTyeire was elected 
editor, thus making seven years at that post. In 1858 he 
was elected editor of the Christian Adoocate of Nashville, 
Tennessee. In 1866 Dr. McTyeire was elected Bishop, and 
has always been devoted and prominent in that position. 
He received the title of D. D. from Emory college, Georgia, 
and La Grange college and other institutions have since 
honored him similarly. He was chiefly instrumental in 
securing the gift of one million dollars from the late Cornelius 
Vanderbilt to found Vanderbilt University, and the subse- 
quent munificent gifts from Mr. "W. H. Vanderbilt. Com- 
modore Cornelius Vanderbilt placed it in his hands as 
President of the Trust, with an elegant and permanent 
residence upon the spacious grounds. The Bishop's wife is 
a cousin of Mr. Vanderbilt's widow. He is naturally a lead- 
er, quick in his movements, firm and judicious. He 
possesses much of the hauteur of Bishop Soule, without bis 
Andrew Jackson stern manners. He is the author of the 
Manual of the Discipline, and The Duties of Masters, Catechism 
on Bible History, prepared for the colored Methodist Episco- 
pal church in America, but used extensively by the church 
South ; also, Catechism, on Church Government, which now is 
in the course of study for young ministers. Bishop Mc- 
Tyeire was Vice-President of the Western Section of Ameri- 
can Methodism of the (Ecumenical Conference, and made 
one ot the speeches of welcome at City Koad Chapel, London, 
September, 1881. In person he is always courtly-looking, 
with bright eyes and dark complexion ; he has a tall and 
well-knit frame, without being stout. 

Bishop John Christian Keener, D. D., the youngest in 



The Methodist Armor. 

the order of election, is a native of Baltimore, Maryland, 
bom February 7, 1319. Through the influence of Key. Dr. 
Wilbur Fisk, who was visiting his father, the widely known 
late Christian Keener, lie spent three years at Wilbraham 
Academy, Massachusetts, under his care : and when Dr. 

: became President of Wesleyan University, Miduletown, 
Connecticut, he became a member of the first class, and 
graduated in 1835. Shortly after his graduation he was 

. erted, and entered mercantile life, but abandoning his 
bright secular prospects, he went South and entered the 
ministry, and was admitted into the Alabama Conference in 
1843. In a few years he was scut to New Orleans, then 
especially a post of danger, and yet of honor because of its 
importance. lie spent a score of years in the pastorate of 
chief churches and presiding eldership. In 1803 he was 
elected editor of the New Orleans Christian Advocate, and in 
1870 he was elevated to the episcopacy. Bishop Keener is 
known, but not published, as the author of Post Oak Circuit, 
written as a prize essay on the support of the ministry, which 
appeared in 1855, and has gone beyond the twelfth edition, 
and is still going. It is humorous, pathetic, and argumenta- 
tive by turns, and has done much to aid in the support of 
the ministry. In person Bishop Keener is large an 1 measur- 
ably stalwart, with a genial countenance. lie is a pulpit 
orator of the magnetic type, lie has been largely identified 
with tie m mission work of the church. 

Five new Bishops were elected by the General Confer- 
ence of the . Methodist Episcopal church South lately in 

ion at Nashville, Tennessee. Of this number, one — the 
Rev. Dr. Haygood — declined to be ordained. The College 
of Bishops is therefore at present nine in number. 

shop Alpheus Waters Wilson, D. D., is the son of 
Rev. Norval Wilson, a prominent minister of 



Organization of the M. E. Church, South. 200 

Methodist Episcopal church, and widely known in Maryland 
and Virginia. lie was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 
1834, converted in early life, and was educated at Columbia 
college, Washington city, and afteward studied with the in- 
tention of practicing medicine, but abandoned the idea, and 
entered the ministry in the Baltimore Conference of the 
Methodist Episcopal church in 1853. He soon took high 
rank, and commanded some of the best appointments in 
Baltimore and elsewhere. His health failed, and he read 
and practiced law ; and when restored, he re-entered the 
active ministry. He was identified with the Baltimore Con- 
ference organized in the Methodist Episcopal church South, 
and became prominent in that body, and was elected a dele- 
gate to the first General Conference thereafter, and has been 
re-elected three times to this highest court, which meets 
quadrennially. lie was at this time honored with the degree 
of Doctor of Divinity. At the General Conference held at 
Atlanta, Georgia, in 1878, he was elected Secretary of the' 
Board of Missions, which, through his thorough canvass of 
the churches and fervid appeals, has resulted in large contri- 
butions to the cause, and the enlargement of the foreign 
mission work. His able pulpit and platform ministrations 
in behalf of this cause, and rare executive abilities, have led 
to his elevation to the higher work of the episcopacy. He 
was a delegate to the great (Ecumenical Conference at 
London, England, in September, 1881, and read an able 
paper on "The Influence of Methodism on Other Denomina- 
tions." He is the author of a new work just published on 
Missions, which is highly spoken of. He has the elements 
of a leader, and will make his impression in the councils of 
the church, and in shaping her aggressive movements. He 
u of almost medium height, compactly built without being 
lieshy, and with admirable poise : a vigorous mind in a 



210 The Methodist Armor. 

- * 
vigorous body. His face is heavily bearded. He is sociable 

yet dignified, and neat in person. lie was the only one 
elected on the first ballot. 

Bishop Linus Parker, D. D., is a native of Rome, New 
York, born in 1829, bat removed to New Orleans, Louisiana, 
in his boyhood. While engaged as a clerk in a dry-goods 
store, he supplemented a meagre education by rising in the 
mornings at four o'clock to study Latin and Greek before 
entering upon the duties of business. Converted young, he 
entered the ministry in the Louisiana Conference in his 
twenty-first year (1849), and after spending four years at two 
appointments in that State, he was sent to New Orleans, 
where he has labored ever since as pastor, presiding elder, 
and editor. A considerable portion of the past quarter of a 
century he has been presiding elder, and editor of the Xew 
Orleans Christian Advocate, successor to Bishops McTyeire 
and Keener in the editorship of that paper. lie was honored 
by Centenary college with the degree of Doctor of Divinity. 
The Advocate under his editorship has risen to conncctional 
fame ; his polished editorials have won him journalistic fame 
among cultivated people outside of the pale of the church. 
He has been elected a delegate to the General Conference 
five times, the first in 1858, when he was quite young in the 
ministry. As a writer he is clear, smooth, and forcible. 
As a preacher he is elegant and profound, and remarkable 
for bringing out the hidden meaning of difficult texts ; he is 
regarded in the front rank of preachers in the South. By 
his culture and scholarly attainments, deep piety, sound 
judgment, modest demeanor, meekness of spirit, amiability 
and simplicity of manners, he has won great popularity 
among people and preachers. lie is regarded as eminently 
fitted to i i 11 any position in the gift of the church. A man 
of fine presence, tall and large frame, well filled, without 



Organization of the M. E. Church, South. 211 

being unduly stout. Rather tawny skinned, with black 
piercing eyes, and dignified and courtly manners ; the picture 
of vigorous health. He was elected on the second ballot, 
and ranks second in the order of election. 

Bishop John Cooper Grandbery, D. D., the scholarly 
professor in Yanderbilt University, is a native of Norfolk, 
Virginia, born December 5, 1829. lie was noted in his bo}- 
hood and youth for his exemplary character, and in his 
fifteenth year was converted. Entered Randolph-Macon 
college, and graduated with the first honor in 1848. The 
same year (his twentieth) he was received on trial in the 
Virginia Conference, and has been identified with that body 
ever since. He soon rose to be one of the foremost ministers 
in that body, and commanded appointments to churches at 
"Washington city, Richmond, and Petersburg. He was also 
chaplain of both Randolph-Macon College and the University 
of Virginia, the former honoring him with'M. A. and D. D. 
When the war began, he entered the Confederate army as a 
chaplain, and continued to serve the army until the close of 
the struggle — a service in which he fearlessly discharged his 
duties, and was severely wounded in the temple, which in- 
jured the sight of one eye, and he was taken prisoner. He 
held for a time the position of Superintendent of Chaplains 
from the Virginia Conference. In 1875 he was elected pro- 
fessor in the Theological Department of Vandcrbilt Univer- 
sity, which position he has adorned, and if he had not been 
elected to the episcopacy, he would have been chosen Dean, 
to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Dr. Summers, 
because of his varied talents and scholarly culture. He i* 
not an author, but has written much and well for the church 
press. Has been a member of four General Conferences ; 
and though honored so often by his Conference, he rarely 
speaks, but has the reputation of being an elegant, chaste, 



212 The Methodist Armor. 

scholarly, and eloquent preacher. lie po a clear 

analytical mind of a judicial cast, and is an able theologian, 
lie is a man of the purest character, humble in his walk, 
retiring, sweet-spirited. He is of medium height, with high 

forehead; good habit without being stout; well bearded: 
eyes shaded with glasses. He was elected on the second 
ballot, and is fourth in the order of election. 

Bishop Robert Kennon Hargrove, 1). 1)., very unex- 
pectedly was elected, as he was not a member of the General 
Conference, which is the only instance except one in the 
history of the church. At the first ballot he developed 
strength, and at the second he only lacked two votes of an 
election. There being only one to elect, he was chosen by 
an overwhelming majority. He was born in Pickens county, 
Alabama, September 17, 1829. Converted when but eleven 
years old, he soon after became a student in the University 
of Alabama, and graduated with honor. He was admitted 
on trial into the Alabama Conference in 1857, and was sent 
to some of the best appointments at Mobile, Suramerfield, 
and Greensborough, Alabama. He was transferred, and 
appointed to Lexington, Kentucky, and thence, to the Ten- 
nessee Conference, and was appointed pastor of the Mc- 
Kendree church, the seat of this General Conference, and 
also presiding elder of the Nashville and Franklin districts. 
At the time of his election he was presiding elder of the 
Glarksville District. For some time he was Adjunct Pro- 
fessor in the University of Alabama, which had honored him 
with A. P>. and A. M. Emory College gave him D. D. 
Then he was elected President of the Centenary Institute, 
and afterward became President of the Nashville Female 
College. He was one of the famous Cape May Commis- 
sioners who drew up a compact between the Methodist 
Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church South 



Organization of the M. E. Church, South. 213 

'to regulate certain disputed church questions, which has 
given him fame in American Methodism. His name had 
been prominently mentioned in regard to certain connection- 
al offices had he not been elected to the episcopacy. He 
has been a member of three General Conferences previous 
to this one, and was a member of the Book Committee and 
Board of Missions the past four years. He is a man of broad 
culture and progressive views, and though not widely known 
in authorship, is a fine writer. He is regarded as a strong 
preacher and an able theologian. It is believed that he has 
all the elements of character to make a successful and useful 
Bishop. He is of good height, large frame well filled, 
pleasant countenance, with slight beard, quite gray hair for 
his years, very genial, and courtly in appearance. 

Deceased Bishops of the M. E. Church, South. 

Bishop Joshua Soule, D. D., born in Maine, 1781, 
elected bishop 1824, died in Tennessee 1867. A grand man, 
whose sermons were distinguished for great breadth of view 
and majesty of style, oftentimes bearing down upon the 
audience like an irresistible storm. With a masterly hand 
he scattered the vital seeds of the Gospel from Maine to 
Texas, sowing beside all waters. 

Bishop James 0. Andrew, D. D., born in Georgia 1794, 
entered the South Carolina Conference 1812, elected bishop 
1832, died in New Orleans March 2, 1871. "As a man he 
was spotless in reputation, social and genial in intercourse ; 
and as a preacher he was earnest, strong, and useful, grasp- 
ing his subject firmly, and often presenting his thoughts with 
peculiar force and effect." — Bishop Paine. 

Bishop William Capers, D. D., born in South Carolina 
1790, elected bishop 1846, died in South Carolina 1855. 
"He was one of the master-spirits of the second generation 



214 The Methodist Armor. 

of Southern Methodists; a worthy successor of Asbury, Hull, 
Humphries and Daugherty, intrepid, whole hearted, well 
poised, strong in influence that had been. nobly won by great 

labors A y<jvy special fluency in utterance, ease of 

movement, refinement and elegance of manner, and a chaste 
and finished delivery, characterized his preaching." — 
Bishop Wightman. 

Bishop Henry B. Bascom, I). I)., horn in Xew York 
1796, joined the Ohio Conference 1813, elected bishop 1850, 
and died in September of the same year. He presided over 
only one Conference before he died. He rose from an 
obscure birth and "attained to an eminence never before 
reached by any preacher in America, and was regarded as 
the first pulpit orator of the world." In personal appear- 
ance he was a Daniel Webster, in magnificence of oratory a 
Cicero, in learning a walking cyclopedia. 

Bishop John Early, D. D., born in Virginia 1786, en- 
tered the ministry 1807, elected bishop 1854, (lied in Virginia, 
November , 1873. He was a man famous for business tact, 
for stirring energy and fruitful work. For over a half a 
century he served his church with great fidelity. 

Bishop \V. M. Wightman, D. 1)., born in South Caro- 
lina 1808, joined the Conference of South Carolina 1828, 
elected bishop 1854. Bishop Wightman was one of the 
most scholarly men in the Southern Methodist church. He 
was a most excellent writer, a magnificent preacher, and a 
fine presiding officer. Died February 15th, 1882. 

Bishop Enoch M. Marvin, 1). D, a native of Missouri, 
born 1823, entered the Conference of Missouri 1841, elected 
bishop 1800. Died in St. Louis, Mo., November, 1877. A 
man of rare purity, richly gifted as a writer and of extra- 
ordinary power as a preacher. 

Bishop David S. Doggett, D. D., born in Virginia, 
joined the Conference of Virginia 1829, elected bishop 1860. 
Died in Richmond, Va., 1880. A polished and scholarly 
writer, and the "golden-mouthed" orator of the Southern 
pulpi 



Organization of the M. E. Church, South. 215 
Statistics of the Methodist E. Church, South, 1880. 



Annual Conferences. 


Traveling 
Preachers 


Local 
Pr'cli'rs. 


Total Preachers 
and Members. 


S. School 
Teach's. 


s. School 
Schal'rs. 


Alabama, 


142 


200 


31,410 


2,396 


16,657 


Arkansas, 


84 


103 


14,6S.2 


745 


5.632 


Baltimore, 


189 


111 


30,772 


4,283 


25,998 


Columbia, 


29 


19 


1,527 


50 


401 


Denver, 


6 


10 


466 


50 


435 


East Texas, 


•57 


147 


14,782 


732 


5,630 


Florida, 


77 


110 


11,004 


861 


5. ,507 


German Mission, 


20 


16 


1,225 


138 


7.t 7 


Holston, 


176 


290 


44,950 


3,739 


8,541 


Illinois, 


49 


59 


5,426 


577 


4,262 


Indiana, 


21 


18 


1,441 


142 


823 


Indian Mission, 


32 


113 


5,879 


352 


2,411 


Kentucky, 


121 


104 


22,381 


1,372 


9,912 


Little Rock, 


86 


174 


17,008 


1,152 


8,272 


Los Angeles, 


18 


18 


1,163 


74 


652 


Louisiana, 


8(5 


54 


14,039 


844 


6,056 


Louisville, 


145 


211 


32,090 


1,518 


11,292 


Memphis, 


152 


23S 


33,719 


2,490 


18,610 


Mississippi, 


119 


150 


23,851 


1,439 


8,279 


Missouri, 


141 


154 


27,397 


2,054 


15,084 


Montana, 


5 


5 


243 


19 


109 


North Alabama, 


127 


365 


35,044 


1,981 


15,136 


North Carolina, 


104 


244 


07,709 


4,757 


38,993 


North Georgia, 


222 


443 


63,543 


1,120 


36,303 


North Mississippi, 


150 


191 


29,321 


1,053 


10,527 


North Texas, 


118 


202 


24,991 


1,139 


9,223 


North-west Texas, 


158 


320 


2S,312 


1,540 


11,283 


Pacific, 


66 


37 


4,414 


528 


5,415 


South Carolina, 


173 


139 


46,790 


3,288 


23,878 


South Georgia, 


143 


217 


32,617 


2,253 


10,42) 


South-west Missouri, 


88 


145 


17,463 


99') 


7,580 


St. Louis, 


73 


83 


11,018 


826 


6,116 


Tennessee, 


211 


343 


46,997 


2,823 


22,562 


Texas, 


63 


66 


8,314 


511 


2,113 


Virginia, 


208 


173 


57,449 


6,951 


39,705 


Western, 


31 


38 


3,122 


158 


1,237 


Western Virginia, 


70 


119 


15,360 


1,361 


8,156 


A Vest Texas, 


7M 


68 


6,605 


361 


2,923 


White River, 


78 


159 


12,227 


92) 


6,946 


China Mission, 




9 


131 


42 


319 


Mexican Mission, 




34 


744 




740 


Brazilian Mission, 




1 
5,868 


71 






Total in 1880 


7,004 


847.703 


61,119 


440,014 


Total in 1379 


6,881 


5,832 


832,189 


58,528 


421,137 



123 36 15,511 2,591 19,471 



21G 



The Methodist Armor. 



CIIArTER XX. 

GENERAL SUMMARY OF METHODISTS. 

The following summaries have been compiled from the 
latest official statistics reported by the several branches of 
the great Wesley an Methodist family. Those of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church are to July 1, 1881, and include the 
official numerical returns of the autumnal Conferences of 
1880 and the spring Conferences of 1881. Those of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, are for 1880. Those 
of the Canadian, British, and affiliating Conferences are for 
1881. In two or three of the churches the numbers of local 
preachers are "estimated ;" but in each of those by dis- 
tinguished members of large observation in the respective 
denominations. 



/. Episcopal Methodists in United States. 



Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
African Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, 
Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Evangelical Association, 
United Brethren, 
Union American M. E. Church, 



Itiuerat 

Ministers. 

12,142 
4,004 

1,832 

1,650 

038 

912 

2,106 

110 



Local 
Preachers. 

12,323 

5,868 

9,760 

3,750 

683 

611 

22 



Total Episcopal Methodists in U. S. 33,484 33,017 

II Non-Episcopal Methodists in United States. 

Methodist Protestant Church, 
American Wesleyan Church, 
Free Methodist Church, 
Primitive Methodist Church, 
Independent Methodist Church, 

Total Non-Epis. Methodists in U. S 2,055 1,615 



Lay 
Members. 

1,717,567 
837,831 
391,044 

3i)o,oo:) 

112,300 

113,871 

157.835 

2,600 

3,633,048 



314 


925 


113,405 


250 


200 


25,000 


271 


328 


1?,642 


196 


162 


3,210 


24 




12,550 



166,807 



General Summary of Methodists. 217 

III. Methodists in Canada. 

Ttinerat Local Lay 

Ministers. Preachers. Members. 

The Methodist. Church of Canada, 1,178 1,295 125,323 

Methodist Epis. Church of Canada, 272 255 27,402 

Primitive Methodist Church, 97 270 8,218 

Bible Christian Church, 75 197 7,677 

British Meth. Epis. Church (Colored), 45 20 2,100 

Total Methodists in Canada, 1,667 2,037 170,720 

IV. Methodists in Grgat Britain and Missions. 

British Wesleyan Meth's. in Gt. Britain, 1,910 18,71 1 411 ,663 

British Wesleyan Meth's. and Missions, 556 5.600 99,976 

Primitive Methodists. 1,149 15,517 185,312 

New Connection Methodists, 183 1,149 31,652 

Wesleyan Reform Union, 18 611 7,728 

United Free Methodists, 432 3,403 80,663 

Bible Christians (including Australia), 306 1,908 33,370 



Total Methodists in G. B. and Mis. 4,554 46,899 850,364 

V. Wesleyan Affiliating Conferences. 

Irish Wesleyan Conference, 245 1,800 25,148 

French Wesleyan Conferences, 31 1,879 

Australasian Conferences, 476 4,480 69,217 



Total in Wesleyan Affiliating Con's. 752 6,280 96,244 

Grand Totd of Ministers and Lay Members. 

Methodists in Churches in U. S. 35,539 34,632 3,799,855 

" Dominion of Canada, 1,667 2,037 170,720 

Gt. Britain and Mis., 4,554 46,899 850,364 

Affiliating Conferences, 752 6,280 96,244 



Grand total of Meth's. and Mis. in 1881, 42,512 89,848 4,917,183 

Note. — Total Methodist population, (estimated,) 24,5S5,915. 

Comparative Statistics. 

All Methodists in United States, 1879, 

All Baptists, 

All Presbyterians, " " 

All Lutherans, 

All Congregationalists, " " 

All ProtEpiscopalians, " " 

All Universalists, " " 

Xote. — In the number of Methodist ministers here 

givan the Loca 1 Methodist preachers are not included. The 



misters. 


Members. 


23,888 


3,506,891 


20,292 


2,656,221 


8.301 


897,598 


2,976 


808,428 


3,496 


375,654 


3,147 


321,367 


711 


37,500 



218 The Methodist Armor. 

number of Local preachers in the United States is 25,498. 
Total number of Methodist preachers, Travelling and Local, 
in the United States, is 48,526. 

Denominational Statistics from the United States 
Census, 1870. 



Denomination*. 


Congrega- 
tions. 


Church 
Edifices 


Church 
Sittings. 


Church 
Property. 


Methodists, 


25,278 


21.837 


6 528.209 


$69,854,121 


Baptist, 


15,839 


14,032 


4,305,135 


41,007.198 


Episcopal, 


2,835 


2.001 


991,051 


30,514,549 


Presbyterian, 


7,824 


0,071 


2,097.244 


43,305.300 


Lutheran, 


3,032 


2,770 


977,332 


14^1 7,747 


Roman Catholic, 


4,127 


3,800 


1,990,514 


60,985,566 


Congregationalist, 


2,887 


2,715 


1,117'212 


25,009,698 



The Pre-eminent Success of Methodism. 

The Methodist began to preach in this country in 1773. 
The Baptist began in 1639. The Presbyterians began in 
1703. The Congregationalisms in 1648. The Catholics, 
Lutherans and Episcopalians began with the settlement of 
the country. It will be seen then that the Methodist is the 
youngest of the churches mentioned. She is 177 years 
younger than the Baptist, 118 years younger than the Con- 
gregation alists, 63 years younger than the Presbyterians — 
while the Catholics, Episcopalians, and Lutherans are as old 
as immigration to the American shores. Noth withstanding 
this, the Methodist church is by far the largest in numbers. 
The census table shows that she has one-third of all the 
church-organizations in the United States; one-third of all the 
church-edifices; preachers to one-fourth of all the church- 
going population ; and has built on an average, nearly two 
churches per day for the last twenty years. The Methodist 
population in the United States is estimated to be 23,440,465. 
"In twenty-two of the thirty-seven States in the Union, the 
Methodist church is first in numbers ; in eleven others, she is 
second ; in three others she is third. The Roman Catholic 



General Summary of Methodists. 219 

church is fast in five States ; the Baptist is first in six States ; 
and the Congregationalist is first in four States." 

It will be seen from the above tables that the Methodist 
church stands far in advance of all other denominations in 
this country. She ranks first in the number of her com- 
municants, in the number and capacity of her church build- 
ings, and in the value of church property, and in the amount 
of money collected and expended for church purposes. Let 
it be understood once for all that the success of Methodism 
did not arise : 

First, From any government aid. Methodism received 
no special favors from human government. It is well known 
that the Episcopalians in England, the Presbyterians in 
Scotland, and the Lutherans in Germany, are supported 
largely by State taxes. Methodist people there are forced 
to pay the ministers of these churches. In America, the 
Episcopalians and Presbyterians have occupied largely the 
leading offices in the gifts of the civil government. 

Secondly, Methodism has not grown to its enormous propor- 
tions by immigration. It is well known that the growth of the 
Roman Catholic church in this country, has been mainly by 
immigrants. The other churches have swelled their ranks 
by immigration, while Methodism had to grow by the con- 
version of native Americans. 

Thirdly, Methodism has not succeeded through superior edu- 
cational facilities. The first colleges built in this country were 
run in the interest of other churches. The education of the 
Methodist ministers, especially in early times, was not equal 
to that of other denominations. The success of Methodism 
then is not found in superior intellectual culture. 

Fourthly, The success of Methodism did not arise from 
the possession of great wealth and social advantages. The 
early Methodists were generally poor people. One of the 



220 The Methodist Armor. 

glories of Methodism was the fact that it preached the Gospel 
to the poor, ohscure, neglected people. It sought out the 
uncombed million living in the highways and hedges. 

Fifthly, Nor did it grow to greatness hecause the times 
were -propitious. The time of its origin was one of darkness 
— one of infidelity — rampant immoralities. The world was 
sunk in moral degradation when Methodism began. 

We must then find the causes of Methodist success to be 
1. the superiority of its doctrines ; 2. the efficiency of its 
ecclesiastical organization ; 3. the piety, earnestness, and 
activity of its ministers and members ; 4. and above all the 
baptism of the Holy Spirit; firing the hearts and enlighten- 
ing the minds of the 'preachers and people. "It is not by 
power, nor by might, but by my Spirit saith the Lord." 
As the life, and fruitfulness of the vine depend on the vital- 
izing sap circulating through it; so does the fruitfulness of a 
church depend upon the Holy Spirit. "The fruit of the 
Spirit is love, joy, peace." As the earth is dependent on the 
sun for its beauty and fruitfulness ; so is the church depend- 
ent on the light and warmth of the Holy Ghost to make it 
rejoice and blossom as a rose. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE APOSTOLIC FEATURES OF THE METHODIST 

CHURCH. 

1. The apostolic church was a voluntary company or 
society. Men attached themselves to this by choice, and not 
under force. It is said of the early disciples : "They went 
to their oam company" This apostolic society soon grew to 
a company of thousands. Like the apostolic church, Meth- 



Apostolic Features of the Methodist Church. 221 

odisra began by forming a society for religions culture and 
soon grew to thousands. 

2. The apostolic church was a separated company ; a 
society to promote holiness. Its members were called out 
from among the people of the world and consecrated to the 
service of God. Like the apostolic church, the Methodists 
consecrated themselves to the service of the Lord. The 
leading design of Mr. "Weslev's societies was to 2ret ^ood 
and spread holiness over the land. "The king's daughter is 
glorious within." "As the Lord is holy, be ye also holy." 

3. The apostolic church had its rules of government. 
These were very few and simple. AVhen any member of 
this church became wicked, "such were delivered to Satan."' 
Mr. Wesley selected these apostolic rules of moral conduct, 
and formed a code known as "The general Rules," by the 
observance of which, his people were required to live. 

4. The members of the apostolic church had experimental 
religion. They were converted by the Holy Ghost on the 
day of Pentecost. They lived in the enjoyment of religion. 
"Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea, and 
Galilee, and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear 
of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were mult'- 
plied." Acts 9: 31. Like these churches, the Methodist 
church from the beginning preached and enjoyed experimental 
religion. This is a peculiar and distinctive feature of 
Methodism. 

5. The apostolic church grew and "multiplied." And 
has not Methodism grown from a handful to an army of 
millions. And while Methodism has grown so extensivelv 
its doctrinal unity has not been broken. Among all its many 
branches, its doctrinal unity is the great trunk of these 
branches. 

"I saw in Natal," says James Anthony Fronde, "a 



222 The Methodist Armor. 

colossal fig-tree. It had a central stem, but I knew not 
where the centre was, for the branches bent to the ground, 
and struck root there; and at each joint a fresh trunk shot 
up erect, and threw out new brandies in turn which again 
arched and planted themselves, till the single tree had be- 
come a forest, and overhead was spread a vast dome of 
leaves and fruit, which was supported on innumerable 
columns, like the roof of some vast cathedral."' "Mr. Fronde 
applies this to England and her colonies ; but I apply it to 
Methodism. We know well enough where is the parent 
stem, and the remotest branches are proud of their ancestral 
roots ; but the secondary growths are enormous, and they 
are so many, that they become a forest, and the branches 
have taken root in every soil and have sprung up again, till 
they extend over continents and reach across seas, and the 
leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations, and 
millions find refreshment beneath its shade and are feasted 
on its golden fruits ; and, whether in the frozen north, or 
underneath the fiery sun of the tropics, every stem and 
branch and leaf have a common life, and draw their strength 
and vigor from the same indestructible root." 

Looking at these points of spiritual resemblance, all 
fair-minded men must see the apostolic features of the Meth- 
odist church, and that her claim of being evangelical is well 
founded. She bears stamped upon her brow the mark of 
divine approval. It is impossible to account for her spiritual 
success upon any other theory. We are now prepared to 
see the absurdity of those church claims, which are founded 
on anything else except the piety of its members. Fruit is 
the one decisive test. Christ said : "By their fruits ye shall 
know them." And this test is just as true of churches as it 
is of individuals. The Scriptural soundness of a church is 
to be known by its spiritual fruits. High-sounding nai 



Apostolic Features of the Methodist Church. 223 

are of very little value. !Nb't what churches pretend to he 
but what they are in reforming the world must he the 
standard of excellency. ****** ("That orchard may 
claim superiority over every other which sends the best 
apples to market, the most uniformly, no matter whether 
they have a name or not. Apples are apples, good apples 
are good apples, the best are the best, and no thanks to any- 
body, scientific or unscientific. The center of the universe 
is God ; and the noblest creature which he has created on 
this globe is man ; and the highest thing which man has 
attained is christian manhood ; and he that is the best devel- 
oped in manhood has priority everywhere and in everything. 
And any church that has the power of genius in it, or the 
power of art in it, or the power of eloquence in it, or any 
other mark of superiority in it, though it has had an existence 
co-extensive with the globe, and though it has a lineage 
running. through all time, if it turns out a poor article of 
christian manhood, is a sham — a bogus concern. But a 
church without a lineage, though it has been ever so obscure, 
and though its pretentions are the humblest, if it has achieved 
the reputation of turning out the noblest and the best men, 
has priority over every other church. And therefore men 
should be careful how they claim superiority on the abstract 
ground that there are links which carry them back to the 
times of the apostles. What a shame it would be for a 
church to have the links all just right, and to turn out the 
poorest members ! What a shame it is that such a church 
should not turn out members as good as a church that has 
not a single link, and does not know who its church-father or 
church-grandfather is ! A church that has great radiant na- 
tures in it ; a church in which there are men who arc willing 
to sacrifice themselves for others ; a church whose members 
grow larger and larger by works of benevolence ; a church 



224 The Methodist Armor. 

filled with great generous souls; a church like the Methodist 
church ; a church that has in its membership good men, and 
makes good men, and keeps making them all the time, and 
many of them — what else do you want hut that? What 
more authenticity do you want than it has ?") 

What is the end of church organization ? Why, of 
course to turn sinners into saints. To lead men to repent- 
ance, to faith in Christ, to obedience to God's law. To 
make bad men good men, to turn men from the vanities of 
earth to serve the true and living God. To lead men to 
holiness of heart and life, and thence to a glorious heaven. 
And a church that is doing such a glorious work is God's 
church. If there be but one church doing so, then there is 
but one church, but if there be a hundred churches doing 
such work, then there are a hundred Gospel churches in the 
world, and the more of them the better it will be for the 
world. Methodism does not claim to be the only church, 
but a church among the many. It claims to be one of the 
"seven stars in his right hand" to enlighten the world. It 
claims to be one of the fruitful branches growing out of 
Christ, "the vine." And "Herein is my Father glorified, 
that ye bear much fruit; so shall j/e be my disc) pies.'' 

The general church is one. It is the entire body of all 
justified persons, adults or infants, in every period of time, 
in earth or in heaven. A Gospel church is a company of 
believers organized into a society, believing a Bible creed, 
having its own ritual, and ecclesiastical machinery, claiming 
for its head Christ, for its object the diffusion of the Gospel, 
and for its destiny a glorious triumph. And such is the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 

The External Form of Church Government. 

We do not claim that the external form of our church 



Apostolic Features of the Methodist Church. 225 

government is divinely prescribed. Neither is the form of 
other churches prescribed. Mr. Wesley said : "It is un- 
answerably proved, that neither Christ nor his apostles 
prescribe any particular form of church government." The 
Jewish church evidently with certain modification became 
the Christian church. Christ did not command his disciples 
to form a new church. Xo such command can be found. 
••It is true that there is not on record one single line or word 
from him which prescribes a new church as distinct from the 
Jewish church. He lived in the Jewish church himself. He 
died a member and communicant of that church. Xor did 
his disciples understand that they were to step out of it and 
fashion another one. They, all of them, for more than 
twenty -five years, lived in communion with the Jewish 
church. Forty years after the ascension of their Master 
they still sacrifled in the temple, and were a Christian 
brotherhood only as a party in the original Jewish church. 
It would seem to be the height of historical phantasy, there- 
fore, to declare that the Christian church was outlined and 
prescribed by the Lord Jesus Christ, understood to be so by 
his apostles, and taught by them to be so. A greater mis- 
take can scarce be imagined." 

We have almost an exact analogy of this in Methodism. 
When Wesley undertook to reform the church of England, 
lie did not separate his disciples from the established church. 
They remained in it, and observed its ordinances and rules, 
at the same time holding separate meetings of their own, 
over and above those of their "own church. Finally, it be- 
came necessary for them to draw out and set up a new and 
independent organization. And so the early disciples still 
adhered to the Temple-services, though they had social and 
spiritual meetings of their own besides, till the Roman army 
destroyed the city and the Temple with it. Then they were 



226 The Methodist Armor. 

forced to organize some other form and they modeled their 
future organization mainly after the pattern of the synagogue. 
There is no specific form of church government to he found 
anywhere in the Xew Testament. 

"Nevertheless, there was a church. There were religious 
institutions. They were accepted. They were implied. 
And the moment the apostles began to preach outside of 
Judsea where there was no temple, and where there were no 
synagogues, they were organized, they were officered, and 
there came to he laws and methods and usages ; and the 
apostles commanded them, interpreted them, and ranked 
them. 

Therefore, if any man say that there is no warrant in 
the word of God for any church organization, I think he 
misses the mark on one extreme, as much as the hierarch 
misses it on the other when he declares that there was a 
specific form of organization prescribed for the Christian 
church. These are the extremists on the one side and on 
the other." 

Secondly, it is recognized that there is perfect freedom 
in taking up and laying down the rites, the usages, the 
forms, the customs, and the instructing methods of the New 
Testament. You can make your election among them. You 
can avail yourselves of them, not according to any prescribe I 
divinely appointed scheme, hut according to the exigencies 
and necessities of the work which you yourselves have in 
hand; for the liberty of man, by virtue of his adhesion to 
the Lord Jesus Christ, is the axis of the teaching of the New 
Testament. 

All men have the inalienable right to worship, love and 
serve God. There can be no question on this point. This 
right carries with it another right, the right of men to form 
themselves into an association to improve and protect their 



Apostolic Features of the Methodist Church. 227 

spiritual interest. The right to civil liberty implies the 
right to organize a government to secure, perpetuate and 
defend it ; so the right to worship God carries the right on 

OX o 

the part of men to organize a church to promote that divine ser- 
vice. A company then of godly men have the inalienahle and 
inherent right to organize a church as a means of cultivating 
and propogating holiness. As Luther and his followers had 
a right to organize the Lutheran church, as John Calvin and 
Knox had a right to organize the Presbyterian church, as 
Bishop Cranmer and Henry VIII had a right to organize 
the Episcopal church in England, and Roger Williams and 
his brethren had a right to organize the Baptist church ; so 
had Mr. Wesley, Coke and Asbury a right to organize the 
Methodist church. They all stand precisely upon the same 
ground. The whole Protestant World stands or falls together: 

•Thirdly, in organizing the externals of a church where 
there is no divine prescription given, men are left free to 
choose that form, which promises the most good. 

''Methodism then had a great advantage in its he^nmino- 
in that it was extremely modern. Episcopalians on the one 
hand and Congregational ists on the other alike claimed to 
till the warrant for their characteristic outer forms in those 
of the apostolic church. Presbyterians and other people 
between the two extremes also anchored themselves in de- 
ductions from the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of 
Paul. It was the good fortune of Methodism to be a system 
hised only on expediency, not claiming a ''divine right'* for 
its circuits, its annual removals, its clock-work system of 
wheels within wheels, its class-leaders, and stewards, and ex- 
horters, and local preachers. It did not go further for 
authority for its agencies than this, namely, that they were 
needed, and that they were useful. It was the divine right, 
not of precedent, but of common sense. The whole super- 



228 The Methodist Armor. 

structure of the canon law went down before the military 
necessity of a missionary church. It was not asked what 
Paul thought best to do in founding a church at Philippi or 
at Epheus, hut straight-forwardly it was demanded what was 
best for Philadelphia, and what was wisest for Charleston ; 
not what the elders thought best in conference at Jerusalem, 
but what the delegates thought wise in general conference in 
Baltimore. Hence the immense flexibility and mobility of 
this aggressive ecclesiastical system, which thus unloaded 
itself, not only of the lumber of the mediaeval centuries, but 
of the out-of-date expedients of the apostolic age as well." 

The Claims of Methodism. 

While we do not claim to be the only church, we do 
claim to be superior to some others in many important 
particulars. 

1. We claim superiority in the Scriptural soundness of our 
leading doctrine*. There are four great doctrinal systems in 
the world — the Roman Catholic, the Calvinistic, the Lutheran 
and the "Wesleyan. The Catholic creed teaches that salva- 
tion comes through the Papal church alone. The Calvinistic 
creed makes the salvation or non-salvation of every soul to 
depend on the unchangeable decree of God. The Lutheran 
creed lodges the salvation of the soul in the sacraments. 
The Methodist creed makes the salvation or non-salvation of 
every soul depend on his willingness to receive and. appropriate 
the free grace of the Gospel offered to (dl men. This creed 
presents a doctrine high as the love of God and wide as the 
deep wants of the human race. This ground-view of Meth- 
odism appeals to the common sense of mankind for its truth, 
has driven Calvinism practically out of the pulpit of Christen- 
dom, and is rapidly ascending to the throne of universal 
acceptance. It preaches a free and full salvation, justification 



Apostolic Features of the Methodist Church. 229 

by faith alone, carefulness to maintain good works, the 
witness of the Spirit to the believer's present acceptance, 
holiness of life, a burning love for the salvation of souls, an 
entire reliance upon the Holy Spirit as the source of spiritual 
power. It has an open communion table, contends for a 
pure and spiritual worship, a deep and heart-ielt experience 
of vital religion, encourages and promotes revivals as vital to 
the health and growth of a church. The vast army of 
Methodism has been recruited mainly through its system of 
revivals. While other churches have been o;atherino: a few 
members through family training and catechetical instruction, 
Methodism has swept them in by hundreds and thousands. 
The first method is the slow way of fishing with hook and 
line, the revival method is fishing with a net, that goes far 
out into the waters, and sweeps in thousands with one haul. 
2. Methodism claims superiority in adapting itself to the 
circumstances of human life. "Methodism," says the cele- 
brated Dr. Talmage, "in England preaches in a gown ; in 
our Eastern cities in broadcloth ; in the West, in shirt-sleeves, 
if the season be appropriate— preaching in the house or in 
the fields — anywhere — it makes no difference where — preach- 
ing just as well in one place as in another. It takes the 
express-train and goes across the continent, or a horse and 
rides with saddle-bags across the prairie. It is at home in 
the magnificent St. Paul's Xew York, and is not at all incon- 
venienced in a los;-cabin Here is a man fallen down 

in the ditch of sin and crime. How are we going to get him 
out ? We come up elegantly appareled, and we look at him, 
and we say, "What a pity it is to see a man so deep in the 
mud. We wish we could °'et him out. Is it not awful to 
see that man suffering there ? Get a pry, somebody, and 
help now ! I wish I had on my other clothes." While we 
stand there, looking at the poor man, the Methodist comes 



230 The Methodist Armor. 

along and says, "Brother, give me your hand;" pulls him ap 
and sets him on the Rock of Ages." 

We are told in one of the Arabian stories of a fairy tent 
which a young prince brought, hidden in a walnut-shell, to 
his father. Placed in a council-chamber, it grew till it en- 
canopied the king and his ministry. Taken into the court- 
yard, it rilled the space till all the household stood beneath 
its shade. Brought into the midst of the great plain without 
the city, where the army was encamped, it spread its ex- 
pansive shade all abroad, till it gave shelter to a mighty host 
of people. It had wonderful flexibility and expansiveness. 
And such is the expansive flexibility and adaptableness of 
Methodism. It has this power of easy adaptation to the 
most diversified conditions of life. It reaches out its arms 
to embrace the Negro in his hut, the backwoodsman in his 
forest home, the scholar in his study and the prince in his 
gilded palace. 

3. Methodism, more than any other denomination, has ex- 
ercised a wateh-care over individual members. To visit from 
time to time every house where there is a Methodist member, 
though it may be but a servant girl, and to talk and pray 
with them, is the old ideal of a Methodist preacher's duty, 
and it is yet held and acted on in most places. The class- 
leader is also to watch over the members in his charge, and 
"to see every member of his class once a week" was formerly 
exacted of him. This constant watchfulness checked in- 
cipient backslidings, recovered those who had gone astray, 
and was a powerful engine for the enforcement of discipline. 
The elass-leaders are appointees of the pastor, and are his 
deputies. Attendance upon the class-meetings is no longer 
compulsory, but the watchfulness of the leader over his (lock 
and his accountability to the pastor in the regular meetings 
of the official board are yet great powers for the conservation 



Apostolic Features of the Methodist Church. 231 

of the membership. A system of intelligence is thus estab- 
lished by which the pastor is enabled to consider every 
member, even the most obscure, in his individual circum- 
stances and qualities. Methodism is not so much an organ- 
ization, but an organism in which every part, even the re- 
motest, is vitalized by its connection with the whole. Of 
late 3'ears an effort has been made to supply the lack of the 
old efficiency of the class-meeting system, by organizing the 
ladies of the city congregations into societies for the purpose 
of assisting the pastor in visitation and supervision. 

Methodism has always been intensely social. Its class- 
meetings were family gatherings ; its love-feasts, and prayer- 
meetings, and "general class-meetings" were so many ever- 
recurring expressions of its social life. More powerful than 
any oratory is the influence of fellowship upon the masses of 
the people, and this fellowship Methodism furnished and still 
furnishes. In the older and less conventional days I have 
seen class-meetings and love-feasts break up with what the 
enthusiastic Western people called "a good old-fashioned 
Methodist shake-hands all round.'- Xo social distinctions 
were tolerated then. The title of "brother" and "sister," in 
all but universal use, between Methodists, as substitutes for 
"Mr." and "Mrs.," was a symbol of the entire equality of 
brethren in the church. 

4. Methodism claim* superiority in her methods of diffusing 
the Gospel over the World through the Itinerant Ministry. It is 
this grand agency, that has enabled Methodism to keep up 
Avith the march of frontier settlements, cross the Alle^hanies, 
follow the Indian trail beyond the Mississippi, and at length 
fill the far west with the sound of its victories. In the wake 
of its luminous progress, have sprung up all kinds of im- 
provements. It has been a popular educator, civilizer and 
refiner to the rude masses of the west. A distinguished out- 



232 The Methodist Armor. 

sider has "recognized in the Methodist economy, as well as 
iii the zeal, the devoted piety, and efficiency of its ministry, 
one of the most powerful elements in the religious prosperity 
of the United States, as well as one of the firmist pillars of 
their civil and political institutions." Bancroft, the historian, 
acknowledges the Methodists as "the pioneers of religion'-' in 
this country, and says, that they have "carried their consola- 
tions, songs and prayers to the furtherest cabins in the 
wilderness." Another talented writer has said, "Their voice 
went through the land as a trumpet call. It sounded over 
the heights and depths, and filled the country with its echoes." 
Not only have the banners of Methodism been planted in all 
the States and territories of the Union from sea to sea, but 
it has spread rapidly over Great Britain, its native home, 
into Scotland, Ireland to Nova Scotia, the AYest Indies, 
France, Africa, India, Germany, and is achieving remarkable 
success among the Cannibal Islands of the Southern Sea. 
"The world is my parish," said Mr. Wesley, and it seems 
that this prophecy is about to be realized. For the bright 
eye of the sun sees no longitude on the rolling earth, where 
Methodism is not working for the salvation of men. May 
her future history realize the noble anticipations of the poet, 
Montgomery, who said, "Century expanding after century, 
like circle beyond circle in broad water, shall carry farther 
and farther the blessings of the Methodist dispensation, till 
they have tracked every sea, and touched every shore." 



The Training of Children, etc. 233 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN IN CHRISTIAN HOMES, 

SO AS TO BRING THEM TO CHRIST, AND ATTACH 

THEM TO METHODISM. 

(The Address of Rev. Joseph Wood, published in the 
QCcumenical Methodist Book.) 

The subject limits us to the consideration of one institu- 
tion for leading our children "to Christ and attaching them 
to Methodism," viz., their "training in Christian homes." 
It is obligatory upon parents to bring up their families "in 
the nurture and admonition of the Lord." The lessons im- 
parted at the fire-side, the spirit of Christianity pervading the 
house, and the gentle courtesies and sweet attachments of 
home, ought to engrave the words of God and the Gospel of 
His Son upon the heart and mind of every child and every 
member of the household. We shall lay down and briefly 
discuss several propositions : — 

I. That the religion of Methodists ought to re trans- 
mitted TO, AND REPRODUCED IN, THEIR CHILDREN. 

What is the religion of Methodists ? Has it any pecu- 
liarities — any distinctive features ? It is not simply a creed 
or a profession ; it is life and energy, a power in the heart, 
controlling the centre of our being. John Weslev had to 
insist on a religious life. He found the profession without 
the power of godliness, and his great object was to revive 
vital Christianity. We want to see Methodism in its true 
import handed down from generation to generation. We 
do not desire to alter its form or principles, but to diffuse its 



234 The Methodist Armor. 

living spirit and power. It will profit our children but little 
to have the name of Methodists, and to cling to the traditions 
of their fathers, if they he destitute of the great reality, the 
inward and spiritual change. The kingdom of God is not 
"in word only hut also in power, and in the Holy Ghost and 
in much assurance." 

Our subject speaks of "bringing children to Christ," and 
"attaching them to Methodism;" that is the order, "to 
Christ," and then "to Methodism." It would not be desira- 
ble to retain such as are alienated from Christ. Our churches 
have but few attractions for the unrenewed. They lack 
those external elements which are the great charm and 
fascination of worldly minds. The world will love its own. 
Then to abide with us, our sons and daughters must be born 
again, partake of our faith, and repeat our life. If they have 
no saving relation to Christ, their relation to the church can- 
not profit either them or us. To hold in connection with it 
ungodly persons, would diminish the power and tarnish the 
glory of any church. A worldly and impure element is an 
element of weakness and decay. To be satisfied with any- 
thing less than the new birth for our members we should 
lower the standard which our fathers set up, and surrender 
the object for which Methodism, by the Providence of God, 
was called into existence. If we cannot persuade our young 
people to fulfil the conditions of such change, and therein; 
pass from death unto life, we shall not have power, and, it is 
hoped, shall not desire to retain them in our communion. 

Then follows the prodigiously important question, How 
far are parents responsible for the regeneration of their 
children ? We do not believe any more in a spiritual "birth- 
right membership" in the church than we do in baptismal 
regeneration. All are born in sin. Every child must be 
won to Christ personally, and be renewed by the Holy Ghost, 



The Training of Children, etc. 235 

or that child remains under the condemnation due to sin, 
even though its parents are as godly as Elkanah and Hannah 
of old. Is there any ground for the general belief that, 
whatever be the training, it is wholly uncertain what our 
sons and daughters in character will become, as uncertain as 
if it were a case of lottery ? The best is hoped for them ; 
but there is no fixed law on which a confident expectation 
may be entertained. "When we know the character of the 
fountain we can judge of the streams. By virtue of a like 
sequence, may we not determine the character of children 
when Ave have ascertained that of parents ? There is as real 
a connection between means and ends in the spiritual 
economy as in the natural economy. We reap what we sow ; 
the harvest answereth to the seed. 

In its doctrines and precepts the Bible sees the religious 
character of the child in that of the parent. Gen. xviii. 19 ; 
Deut. iv. 40; Isa. xliv. 3, 5; Eze. xx. 5, 6; Psalm cxlvii. 
13 ; Jer. xxxii. 39 ; Acts ii. 30, xvi. 31 ; 1 Cor. vii. 14. The 
Divine purpose evidently is, that from godly parents there 
should be a godlv seed, walking in all the ordinances and 
commandments of the Lord blameless ; that as the race is a 
body under Adam, the church should be a body under Christ, 
grafting its children into the living vine, and teaching all to 
know the Lord, from the least unto the greatest. The home 
teaching of the Hebrews was intended to produce regenera- 
tion of character in the children, to make them Jews in- 
wardly as well as outwardly, that they might not be "a stub- 
born and rebellious generation," but might "set their hope 
in God" and "keep His commandments." "When Paul 
directed christian parents to bring up their children "in the 
nurture and admonition of the Lord," the intention was not 
that they should be trained to be merely christian formalists, 
but that thev should have that kingdom of God in the heart 



236 The Methodist Armor. 

which is "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 

Ghost." 

The practicability of this work belongs exclusively to 
God. Our business is to obey His commands. Since it is 
His method to regenerate children by means of christian 
nurture, it is our duty to assume that what He contemplates 
can be done, and to adapt our machinery to the work. 
There is no Scriptural foundation for the theory that all 
children must grow into sin before they can grow into Christ ; 
that all education will produce a crop of iniquity before it 
can produce a crop of holiness. So far as human instru- 
mentality is concerned, it is easier to persuade the young to 
decide for Christ than it is those who are hardened in sin. 
The work must be attempted on a large scale, and if Meth- 
odists can solve the problem of transmitting vital religion 
from generation to generation, the ultimate triumph of 
Christianity will become a matter of course. 

The theory of the church of England in relation to 
children is no idle dream. That church takes it for granted 
that infants ought to be formally dedicated to God by being 
baptised in the name of the Adorable Trinity — that this 
solemn rite should be followed by careful and ample evan- 
gelical instruction — that the instruction will, at an early age, 
result in personal conversion to God; hence at thirteen or 
fourteen children are to be examined and urged to take upon 
themselves the vows made at their baptism, one of which is 
that they will "keep God's holy will and commandments, and 
walk in the same all the days of their life*' The order is 
baptism, evangelical instruction, and official examination. 
Methodists ought to take hold of this theory and turn it into 
a living reality. \\ r e do not require ail the details of it, but 
the general principle. We have the baptism; that is the 
beginning of the plan. Instead of the godfathers and the 



The Training of Children, etc. 237 

godmothers, the real parents are obligated to undertake the 
religious instruction of the child. In place of the confirma- 
tion and the laying on of the bishop's hands, there must be 
examination, an individual appeal to the conscience to gain 
the personal consent and formal promise of each youth to 
submit to Christ, and, as a present guarantee that this 
promise will be fulfilled, now, at once, to join the church by 
going to some class. 

In our ministry and pastoral work we must make this 
duty clear to heads of households, and render them all the 
assistance we can in the performance of it. For the ignor- 
ance and neglect which prevail in regard to it ministers are 
largely responsible. In our sermons we have assumed, if we 
have not directly taught, that young people are to live several 
years to the world, and then be converted. VTe have looked 
for our increases more from revival meetings and the peni- 
tents' form than from the family altar; and been more hope- 
ful of converts from the ranks of those who are well bronzed 
in iniquity and have passed through a kind ®f tragical ex- 
perience in turning to God, than of those who have been 
trained in the way they should go from earliest infancy; and 
to whom the Christian spirit of their home has been a process 
of domestic conversion, leading them into the path of life 
before they had wandered in the way of sin and death. Let 
the great design of baptism, and especially its covenanting 
character, be duly impressed upon parents, showing that the 
ordinance is part of a great plan ; that it is to be followed by 
suitable treatment in order that the baptised may become 
true and living Christians as soon as moral existence begins ; 
then shall we realize what Methodism most needs, and what 
is enforced in the Scriptures — viz., an adult church which 
transmits vital religion to "the generation to come." 



238 The Methodist Armor. 

II. That the family life and habits of Methodists should 

BE REGULATED WITH A VIEW TO THAT END. 

"What are the elements of a truly Christian and Meth- 
odist training ? 

1. High-toned piety in the house and in the daily life of the 
parents. — In the family more than anywhere else is it true 
that example is better than precept. It is what parents are, 
rather than what they say, that will take effect. They are 
the child's first gospel. He reads them before he can tell a 
letter in his primer. He imbibes the spirit of the house be- 
fore he is able to judge of the moral character of it. The 
atmosphere of many a Christian professor's house is very un- 
favorable to the salvation of the young. The malaria of 
worldliness infects the whole family. Commands to be good 
are made a substitute for goodness. There may be the 
morning and evening devotion, strict attention to the public 
means of grace, wise counsels frequently given ; but a 
defective example will neutralise the whole. Religion should 
not be a separate subsistence occasionally introduced to serve 
a purpose as masks are worn ; but the very life and soul of 
the family, ever present, pervading, regulating, and sanctify- 
ing all events. Not simply summoned to soothe and cheer 
in times of affliction and adversity; but its voice blending 
with the merriest moods, and shedding "sweet glories" on 
those moments wdien the loved ones meet, and affection, 
gushing from warm and full hearts, sparkles in the gleams of 
pleasant wit and humor. The homes of Methodists ought 
to be the brightest and happiest out of heaven. We have all 
the essential elements to make them such ; the literature, the 
hymns, the tunes, the devotion, the social enjoyments — in 
fact, everything to render them cheerful and attractive with 
a living piety. 



The Training of Children, etc. 239 



Such homes would be nurseries for our churches — a 
perpetual means of grace to the children. There the young- 
would grow up like Samuel and Timothy, a seed to serve 
God in their generation. The rule would be for them to be 
saved at home, and not in a preaching service or a revival 
meeting. Baxter says, "I do verily believe that if parents 
did their duty as they ought, the Word publicly preached 
would not be the ordinary means of regeneration in the 
church, but only without the church, among practical 
heathens and infidels." He was greatly troubled about his 
own salvation, because he could not call to mind any distinct 
time when he was saved, until, tracing his experience as far 
back as he could, he found that he had been saved too soon 
to recollect the time of it. The particular moment, if there 
was one, was lost in the dim memories of childhood. The 
love of God had mingled with blessings of infancy, and the 
way of sin he had not known. 

John Wesley was awakened to a sense of religion when 
a child at home, and was so remarkable "for the seriousness 
of his spirit, and the general propriety of his behavior," that 
"at the age of eight years he was admitted to the sacrament 
of the Lord's Supper." Methodism, traced up to its fountain 
head, must be regarded as the outcome of all domestic piety, 
rather than of any special evangelistic enterprise. We are 
more indebted to Susannah Wesley than to Peter Bohler. 
To be like our founder, our members must begin to serve 
the Lord in childhood under the influence of parental train- 
ing and example, and continue to walk before God in holiness 
and righteousness to the very end of life. 

2. The institution of suitable means in the house for the 
spiritual enlightenment and regeneration of children. — All must 
not be left to the involuntary influence of the life. The 
reading of the Scriptures with veneration and prayer is of 



240 The Methodist Armor. 

supreme importance, and cannot in any house be omitted 
without immense loss. To read with profit, it is necessary 

to have a system and to accompany the reading with ex- 
planatory remarks and occasional questions. When this 
cannot be done twice a day nor even once, as is often the 
case in this busy, bustling age, in most houses, if proper 
efforts were made, one hour a week could be set apart for it, 
and something like a regular service be held. It was the 
custom in Puritan households to spend the Sunday evening 
in giving Bible lessons and catechetical instruction to the 
children and the servants. This cannot be done in Metho- 
dists' homes, because we have our most important public 
service at that hour, when we should have the whole family 
with us in the house of God. But if there be a will to have 
it done, time will no doubt be found for teaching the family 
the way of salvation, and building them up in the most 
holy faith. 

Should not all Methodists be urged to use their Con- 
nexional catechisms in home training? Every child and 
servant might have a copy, and a question or two be asked 
and answers required daily, and the whole reviewed at the 
weekly service. This would furnish the young with dis- 
tinctions and definitions of doctrine and Christian evidences, 
and thus fortify them against the errors and sophistries of 
the age. If such duties were faithfully attended to in all our 
homes, we would have no fear respecting the next generation 
of Methodists. We might defy either Popery or infidelity 
to lead our youth astray. 

The prayers of the family should be short and simple, 
and refer to the incidents which are occurring. Singing- 
adds much to the interest of the service, and prepares the 
family to join more freely in the praises of the sanctuary, 
Xo house is as it ought to be which has not stated times, 



The Training of Children, etc. 241 

not only for worship, but for conversation with the children, 
to ascertain their mind in relation to Divine things and per- 
suade them to decide for Christ. Should not Methodists 
have a family class-meeting weekly, when all would feel per- 
fectly free to ask any question relative to their circumstances, 
trials, and temptations, and all be encouraged to pray a few 
words, even down to the lisping little one, who asks, "Pleathe 
God bleth little mammy; bleth uth all for Jethuth thake ?" 
Besides this, it is well to take the children apart occasionally, 
and converse with them in the presence of God about the 
soul, Jesus Christ, the judgment to come, the glorious pro- 
vision of the Gospel to make them happy for ever ; what 
constitutes real worth of character ; what are the elements of 
true happiness, and what are the objects which life has been 
given to accomplish, should be solemnly and frequently ex- 
plained to them, and the interview always end in prayer. 
The great point for parents to realize is, that, as a sphere of 
Divine influence, the family is equal to the church. They 
may regard the place of their abode as no less holy than the 
sanctuary, the little gathering at the lireside as no less sacred 
than the assembly in a church or chapel, the instruction and 
service on the domestic hearth as no less efficacious for 
spiritual ends than the rites and observances in the great 
congregation. 

To train the children in regular attendance on public 
worship is also a powerful means of bringing them to Christ 
and attaching them to His cause. A little fellow asked his 
parents to take him to church with them, and they told him 
he must wait till he was older. "Well," was his shrewd 
reply, "you'd better take me now, for when I get bigger I 
may not want to go." If parents regard the worship of the 
sanctuary as a pleasure and not merely a duty, their children 
will generally wish to attend, and it will not be necessary to 



242 The Methodist Armor. 

enforce it by an act of compulsion. But care must be taken 
not to make the Sabbath one of irksome restraint and 
burdensome requisitions ; not one that will be regarded as 
an unwelcome interruption to the amusements and pursuits 
of the week, but anticipated as a day of rest and peaceful 
enjoyment. "We much like the idea of catechising the 
children on the sermons they hear, as well as on the doctrines, 
duties, facts, and privileges of Christianity, as taught in our 
forms of catechism. We cannot but think that these means 
would prevent at least the majority of young people from 
forsaking the altars of God and the courts of Zion. 

3. The exclusion from the family circle, so far as practicable, 
of all pernicious and dangerous Influences. — We scarcely need 
indicate the channels through which these influences come. 
The books that are brought into the house, the persons who 
visit it, the social entertainments provided, and the com- 
panionships formed, are sources of good or bad influences 
which enter into the mental and moral being, and become 
interwoven with the very life of children. We cannot but 
regard the superabundant supply of light literature as more 
or less dangerous. Young people feed upon it until they 
have no appetite for anything solid and substantial. Books 
which deal with unreal persons and things — with scenes, 
events, and characters far removed from the facts of existence 
— unfit and incapacitate the mind for the stern realities of 
life. It is a grievous mistake for those who desire to attach 
their families to Methodism, not to supply them with an 
attractive and wholesome literature, and especially with the 
magazines and various works issued by our Connexional 
Book-rooms. 

We should not, more than is absolutely necessary, ex- 
pose our children to influences hostile to Methodism in 
school, business, and social life. Too often there is but little 



The Training of Children, etc. 243 

care as to what teachings and surroundings they come under 
at school or business. If there be some anxiety not to en- 
danger their morals, there is not much thought whether their 

CD ' O 

Methodism or religion will be safe. At the most critical 
time of their life they are placed in the midst of conditions 
which can hardly fail to deaden their moral sense, and 
alienate them from the churches of their fathers. We were 
pleased to read the earnest words spoken at the Wesleyan 
Conference on this point. One gentleman stated that he 
knew three county magistrates, one a Congregationalist, one 
a Baptist, and another a Methodist; the two former sent 
their children to church schools, and all had forsaken Xon- 
eomformity. The Methodist took care that his children 
were guarded in youth — that they were kept under godly 
Methodist influences, and Ave out of his seven children had 
become members of the Methodist Society. Mr. Ilolden 
said it had cost him much to educate his family in Methodist 
schools; but the result was worth for more than the expense, 
for his children were members of the church, and engaged 
in God's work. The sphere of Methodism is now large, and 
comprehends a sufficient variety of rank, and of profitable 
and honorable employment, and our young people, as far as 
practicable, should be kept within it, with the best examples 
ever before them. 

Is there not reason to fear that some are not well in- 
structed in regard to their friendships, and particularly the 
marriage union ? They may set their aflections on persons 
of doubtful religious character, and even doubtful morality, 
providing those persons are equal to them, or a degree above 
them, in the soeial scale. There is always going to be a 
good match if there is worldly respectability. This infraction 
of the Divine law, which allows believers to marry "only in 
the Lord," is the cause of many of the sons and daughters of 



244 The Methodist Armor. 

our members being lost to Methodism. In primitive times 
the sanction of the church was required for the marriage of 
any of its members. In the Conference of 1763 Mr. Wesley 
said, "Many of our members have lately married unbelievers, 
even such as were wholly unawakened ; and this has been 
attended with fatal consequences. Few have gained the un- 
believing wife or husband ; generally they have themselves 
either had a heavy cross for life or entirely fallen back into 
the world. To put a stop to this let every preacher publicly 
enforce the apostle's caution, 'Be ye not unequally yoked 
with unbelievers.' Let it be also openly declared in every 
place that he who acts contrary to this will be expelled the 
society. When any such is expelled, let an exhortation be 
subjoined, dissuading others from following that bad ex- 
ample." Had not we better have some of these good old 
rules reprinted in our Conference minutes ? 

4. An intelligent and conscientious attachment on the part of 
parents themselves to Methodism. — Is not the want of this the 
cause of many failing to connect their families permanently 
with our churches ? It is not enough to be Christians ; we 
must be Methodists; and let our children see that we regard 
the system so called and distinguished as the highest form of 
Christian and church life. Seeing the value of Methodism, 
not simply in our declared opinions, but in its lovely effects 
upon our lives and conversation, they will learn to regard it, 
not as a human institution to which our partialities or our 
prejudices have attached us, hut as a Divinely-appointed 
system of religion and happiness. 

That they may profit by the exercise of the Christian 
ministry amongst us we must ourselves respect the minister's 
holy vocation, and be painstaking to make them understand 
and respect it too. If they but lightly esteem the messengers 
of God's mercy they will be in danger also of rejecting the 



The Training of Children, etc. 245 

message itself. Let parents be careful not to offend against 
the ministers of the Word, against the commands of God, 
against their own souls, and against the highest interests of 
their families, by uncharitable or unguarded remarks about 
the men who hold the most sacred and important office ever 
entrusted to human beings.' 

Methodist parents ought to make known to their chil- 
dren the distinctive principles of their several denominations, 
that an intelligent choice may be made. But we need not 
attach so much importance to those little barriers which 
divide the various branches of the great Methodist family, 
and which we rejoice to see are becoming beautifully less, as 
to the broad and general features of Methodism, and the 
advantages which we are proud enough to think we have 
over all other Christian denominations. Let us often ad- 
dress to our children the words of the prophet, "Mark well, 
and behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, all that 
I say unto thee concerning all the ordinances of the house of 
the Lord, and all the laws thereof." (Ezek. xliv. 5.) Parents 
who train their children on the principle that they may go to 
any church where they can feel most comfortable, need not 
wonder when it seems to be most comfortable for them to 
go nowhere. If Methodism is the best for us, is it not likely 
to be the best for our children ? 

To say nothing of the unseemliness of families being 
divided in their church connections, is it not most ungrateful 
to be careless whether or not our sons and daughters be per- 
manently attached to Methodism ? Under its influence, 
with God's blessing, we have obtained our spiritual illumina- 
tion, our Christian peace, our gracious transformation, and 
the immortal hope of a heavenly inheritance ; indeed, all 
that we hold dear. When we look at lower things, under 
its shadow many have acquired manifold temporal advant- 



246 The Methodist Armor. 

ages. In all respects it claims their attachment as an avail- 
ing form of godliness, which has the promise of the life that 
now is, and of that which is to come. To be indifferent to 
its preservation and continued efficiency in the world, or its 
influence in and upon the future character, relations, and 
circumstances of our children, would be the utmost incon- 
sistency and the deepest ingratitude. 

Then how to transmit inward religion — true Methodism 
— to "the generation to come," is the great problem we have 
to solve ; how to find, as Dr. Osborn a few years ago so 
admirably put it, "the connecting link between the baptismal 
font and the Lord's table." For this we are persuaded we 
shall have to look more to the family than we have done. 
We must teach our people bow to realize God's saving grace 
in domestic worship and Christian nurture; and not only in 
the Sunday-school and the sanctuary. But parents and 
teachers, ministers and leaders, will have to combine that 
the great end may be gained. As the late Rev. S. Jackson 
said, "We must be at the children, or the millennium is a 
long way off." Those who rock the cradle have the church's, 
as well as the nation's, destinies in their hands. Daniel 
"Webster said to Thomas Jefferson, the great statesman of 
America, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, 
11 What is to be the salvation of our nation ?" After a few 
moments' thought Jefferson replied, "This nation will be 
saved, if saved at all, by teaching the children to love the 
Saviour." Methodist churches cannot always live solely by 
conquest, by conversions from without, by a kind of Gospel 
campaigning. While they continue to make sallies and ex- 
cursions into the kingdom of darkness, they will have to 
learn how to grow, and populate, and become powerful from 
within. "As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are 
children of youth." To neglect them is to commit a great 



The Training of Children, etc. 247 

military blunder. It is to leave our arrows to rust and be- 
come blunt and totally unfit for use, when they ought to be 
collected, polished, and sharpened for the day of battle. 
God says to His faithful people, "Thou shalt see thy children's 
children and peace upon Israel./ The results of a system 
which, by God's blessing, transmits our principles and prac- 
tices from generation to generation, will be general peace 
and prosperity to the end of time. It is recorded that Cyrus, 
when besieging Babylon, perceived the importance of the 
river on the banks of which the city stood, as being at once 
the cause of its security, by shutting out its enemies, and the 
source of its internal prosperity. He therefore devised the 
plan of cutting channels for the purpose of turning the stream 
of the river out of its natural and proper course. By th's 
means he obtained an easy entrance for his troops, and 
doomed the city to slow but certain decay. That illustrates 
the stratagems of the devil to prevent the universal triumphs 
of Christianity. It is high time to interrupt his proceedings 
and frustrate his plans by repairing and keeping up the 
banks of the river from which our great stores of supply 
come, and that our youth may glide onward to the city of 
God, at once its defence and glory, and the source of its 
increase and perpetuity. 

FMJTM8: 



ERRATA. 

On page 44, first line, read obsolete for absolete. 
On page 60, 14 lines from the top, desperate for desparate. 
On page 76, 12 lines from top, apostatize for apost jlizo. 
On page 110, 9 line from top, amenable for amendable. 
On page 156, 10 lines from the bottom, saveth for sooeth. 
On page 157, 11 lines from bottom, Notice for Nbtiee. 
On page 117, 10 lines from bottom, Azotus for Azatus. 
On page 180, 6 lines from top, Backsliders for Backslidders 
On page 198, 6 lines from top, perverted for prevented. 



